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Moral Individualism in Modern Politics: A New Measure Inspired by Political Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 June 2023

Christopher F. Karpowitz Open the ORCID record for Christopher F. Karpowitz [Opens in a new window]  and
Kelly D. Patterson
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Abstract

We reexamine the concept of individualism and its political implications. While both political scientists and social psychologists agree that individualism is a core value for many Americans, political science has primarily associated the concept with views about economic mobility. Building upon insights from political theory, we argue that a narrow focus on economics overlooks key elements of individualism and its relation to political life. With the help of five distinct datasets collected between 2018 and 2022 (combined N = 12,169), we develop a new index that emphasizes autonomy from authority, which we label moral individualism. We show how it and other dimensions of individualism explain interactions with the political world, including responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Across multiple indicators, moral individualists were far less likely to engage in collective action or pursue other behaviors meant to assist the community. For example, even after controlling for the effects of ideology and partisanship, moral individualism reduced the probability of wearing a mask during the first year of the pandemic by approximately 30 percentage points.

Type
Article
Information
Perspectives on Politics , Volume 21 , Issue 4: Special Section: Methods, Ethics, Motivations: Connecting the How and Why of Political Science , December 2023 , pp. 1376 - 1398
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association

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Footnotes

*

Data replication sets are available in Harvard Dataverse at: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/CYGMLQ

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