Differentiation and Integration: Two Dimensions of Political Thinking

Conceptual differentiation refers to the number of discrete elements of political information individuals utilize in their evaluation of political issues. In contrast with the more commonly used textbookish political knowledge indices, this measure corresponds more closely to knowledge-in-use. Conceptual integration is defined as the spontaneous and explicit organization of ideas and information in terms of abstract or ideological constructs and represents an expansion of Philip Converse's research on levels of ideological thinking in mass publics. These two related dimensions of political information processing emerge from a detailed content analysis of depth interview transcripts. The analysis reveals substantial variation in the way citizens relate the condition of their own lives to those of their fellow citizens and to political authorities. As expected, education plays a central role in explaning these patterns, but there are some surprising interactive linkages between education and patterns of political thought. One specially intriguing finding is that conservatives have significantly lower scores than liberals on indices of differentiation and integration. The ramifications of these findings for survey research methodology and theories of mass political behavior are discussed.