Political Identity and Support for Capital Punishment: A Test of Attribution Theory

Studies of public support for capital punishment have consistently observed modest relationships between both political ideology and party affiliation and support for the death penalty; conservatives and Republicans are more inclined to support capital punishment than are liberals and Democrats. This relationship has endured over time and space as well as across a myriad of research designs. Despite its constancy, this relationship has remained unexplained. This study employs the theoretical rubrics of political socialization and identity formation and attribution theory to account for this relationship. Analyses of survey data obtained from jurors summoned to service provide clear support for our claims. That is, conservatives and Republicans are more inclined to support capital punishment because they are also more inclined to adopt a dispositional attribution style which stresses the individual responsibility, deservedness, and moral culpability of criminal offender