Political Attitudes Among Male Swedish Youth

The investigation described in this article is a special study of data collected partly for a different purpose.1) The questionnaire used in the investigation was, however, prepared with a view to rendering feasible a subsequent, more thorough sociological analysis. The field work was performed by the Swedish Institute for Public Opinion from December 1, 1955, to February 4, 1956. The population analysed consisted of Swedish young men between 20 and 30, and the sample was a quota sample. It should be added that the groups workers and agriculture were under-represented in the sample. In the present analysis no weighing was made to compensate for this under-representation. Accordingly we do not know for certain how representative is the sample of the population as far as all purely descriptive distributions are concerned. Consequently the analysis concentrates upon associations between replies made to different questions. Naturally, these associations may be affected by possible defiencies in representativeness, but if so, this will become apparent when similar studies are repeated. Here we present our findings as a contribution towards the knowledge of the formation of political attitudes; this would seem to be of interest at our present state of knowledge about these matters, though the results will probably have to be corrected in many respects by future investigators. Underlying that part of the analysis which is expounded in the present article is the simple basic hypothesis that the attitudes of human beings tend to grow similar to those found in the groups to which the individuals belong. We have established the groups to which our young men belong or have belonged, and in some cases also the political attitudes predominant in these groups. In all these cases we have had to take for granted the information provided by the interviewees themselves, and consequently we cannot guard against erroneous information, errors of perception, etc. As a rule such errors may be assumed to involve the weakening of associations, and we may consider the associations

Political science · Politics · Sociology · Gender Studies · Law · Psychology · Social and Educational Sciences · Social Psychology

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