Conservatism, East and West

Abstract

A multi-national student survey was administered to about 5000 male university students, aged 22 to 24, by 42 researchers in 18 nations. A self-rated conservatism item in this questionnaire was correlated with 93 other variables in order to compare the pattern of conservatism in the West with that in the East. It was found that both Eastern and Western conservatives generally shared the following variables in common. Affectively, they valued personal conformity and leadership, but not benevolence, and they were optimistic. Behaviorally, they were higher than average in their socio-economic status, and politically inactive. Cognitively, they were less interested in politics, and less internationally curious, interested, and knowledgeable. Ideologically, they were Western oriented, resistant to social change, opposed to marijuana, capitalism, and they held hereditary theories of war and aggression.