Conformity

 Researchers using new modeling tools have some interesting things to say about how political attitudes shape our identity.

The researchers’ first claim is obvious: If you know a person’s opinion about one political issue, you can often guess that person’s opinions on other issues. If you know whether your neighbor supports restrictions on gun control, you could probably guess whether he supports restrictions or abortion.

Those networks of opinions are what we are talking about when we use the terms “liberal” and “conservative.”

The researchers’ second claim is that conformity within identity groups based on political attitudes can be measured. Democrats have higher levels of conformity than Republicans.

Individual Republicans are more likely to disagree with the party line on gay marriage and abortion. Democrats are more likely to conform. They also tend toward more extreme positions.

“Extreme” is a loaded term, so let’s proceed carefully. Here, “extreme” is a statistical, not a moral, term. An extreme position is simply one that relatively few people support.

You can frame questions about the rights of transgender people in many ways, but if you ask whether it’s fair to allow volleyball players who were born male to compete against female players, most Americans say no.

I think defending the rights of transgender people is a moral responsibility — it’s nonnegotiable. But I don’t think it’s fair for players who were born male to compete against women who were born female. I don’t think they have a right to compete for spots on women’s teams and to compete for athletic scholarships.

I see a tension between those views about the rights of transgender people — not a contradiction.

The researchers’ paper is provocative. I was reminded of the internal tension within any democracy.

By definition, a democracy is a government of the people, and it must take seriously the rights of individual people, no matter how small the minority. We have a moral obligation to defend those rights.

A democracy, by definition, is also the rule of the majority. No matter how high your ideals might be, those ideals become law only if you can persuade your neighbors.

I lived most of my life in Texas. I don’t know what it’s like to be in the majority politically. As one with some experience of being in the minority, I’d suggest two things:

• Dissent is important.

• The way we dissent is equally important. We should not cut off contact with people we disagree with.

As a rule, I’d say we dissenters could do with a less conformity and a less puritanism. We could tone down our sense of rightness and righteousness, which sometimes strikes our neighbors as self-righteousness.

• Source and notes: Adrian Lüders, Dino Carpentras and Michael Quayle, “Attitude networks as intergroup realities: Using network-modelling to research attitude-identity relationships in polarized political contexts”; British Journal of Social Psychology, 11 July 2023. I found it here:

https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bjso.12665

I found the article because David Brooks mentioned it in a column about the decline of the novel (“When Novels Mattered”; The New York Times, July 10, 2025).