Mapping Individual Level Belief Systems: Testing the Influence of Attitude Centrality, Belief System Density, Individual Differences, and Political Identity in Within-Person Political Attitude Dynamics

Belief systems are an individual-level construct. Scholars have been unable to study them as such. As a result, key predictions from prominent theories of belief systems and inter-attitude structure have been left untested at the appropriate level of analysis. In four studies (N Study 1 = 387, N Study 2 = 389, N Study 3 = 598, N Study 4 = 1156), we use the conceptual similarity task to measure individual-level belief systems, allowing us to directly test key predictions from theories of political belief systems and inter-attitude structure. In line with hypotheses, we find that identity-based elements are more central to belief systems than policy-based elements, that those who are higher in political knowledge and political engagement have denser belief systems than those who are lower in political knowledge and political engagement, and that attitudes that are more central to belief systems are more stable over time than attitudes that are peripheral to belief systems. In contrast, our results are mixed with respect to whether those higher in political knowledge and political engagement have symbolic elements as more central to their belief systems than those lower in these constructs, and whether those with dense belief systems have more stable attitudes over time. Taken together the mixed support we find for the predictions of prominent theories of belief systems and inter-attitude structure at the individual level of analysis underscores the importance of testing theories at the theoretically appropriate level of analysis.