Determinants of Political Party Preference

rather than the factors that cause respondents to reply the way they do. A second approach, which might be referred to as demographic, seeks to relate voting statistics to a wide range of factors, primarily social, economic, ethnic, and religious. Knowledge of these factors without any knowledge of individual preferences within the group permits prediction of voting choice with a rather high degree of accuracy. Still another, in which category this study falls, is an attempt to study the factors operating on an individual which cause him to make a certain choice, or to change his choice. An extensive review of the psychology of voting has been presented by Lipset, Lazarsfeld, Barton, and Linz in Lindzey (6). A major portion of their review is devoted to the study of political behavior through an analysis of voting statistics. Their review of panel technique studies indicated that voters’ choices were analysed most frequently by the study of demographic or social factors. Rarely has the individual, as an individual, been followed intensively in a panel. The rdle of personal experience and personality structure in the formation and retention of attitudes on political and social issues has been studied intensively by Smith, Bruner, and White (9). These authors studied a small number of people in an attempt to relate ideographically their opinions about communism to their total outlook on life. They were able to show how the particular personality structure of each of their subjects constituted a stabilizing and unifying framework for their attitudes toward communism and Russia, These opinions were not simply random events but were closely allied to the personality characteristics of each subject. Studies of voting choice and psychological test data have been most fre