Journal article
Two Become One? Spouses and Agreement in Political Opinions
American Politics Research, Vol.39(5), pp.783-803
09/2011
DOI: 10.1177/1532673X11404133
Abstract
Spouses who talk about politics with each other have long been considered aberrant cases of political discussion because of the frequency of their interaction and the high levels of agreement between them. Using the 1996 Indianapolis-St. Louis Election Study, we challenge these assumptions. We find that compared with other types of discussion dyads, married dyads are no more likely to agree about a host of policy issues, even though they do talk about them more frequently. In addition, we find even when spouses do agree about their presidential vote choice more often, they do not perceive this agreement to exist. These findings indicate that within the microfoundations of married political behavior, spouses may experience less political variety because of the frequency of their interaction, but this does not necessarily mean they experience lower levels of disagreement.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Two Become One? Spouses and Agreement in Political Opinions
- Creators
- Tracy Osborn - University of Iowa, Iowa CityJeanette Morehouse Mendez - Oklahoma State University, Stillwater
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- American Politics Research, Vol.39(5), pp.783-803
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications; Los Angeles, CA
- DOI
- 10.1177/1532673X11404133
- ISSN
- 1532-673X
- eISSN
- 1552-3373
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 09/2011
- Academic Unit
- Political Science; Public Policy Center (Archive)
- Record Identifier
- 9983920527002771
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