Education stands as a potent predictor of political attitudes; however, the underlying mechanisms and moderators of this relationship are not well-understood. We hypothesize that the liberalizing effect of education is moderated by discipline, and that the scientific ethos that serves to guide empirical inquiries facilitates the development of more liberal political attitudes via concerns about fairness and equality. As predicted, being educated in a science-related discipline, as opposed to a non-science discipline, was associated with greater political liberalism; importantly, this effect could not be accounted for by self-selection (Study 1). Furthermore, concerns about fairness and equality, as captured by an individual’s social dominance orientation, mediated the relationship between studying science and political liberalism (Study 2). Study 3 replicated these findings and attest to their generalizability. Study 4 directly assessed the underlying mechanism, endorsement of the scientific ethos, and replicated the mediational model; those who endorsed the scientific ethos more strongly reported more liberal political attitudes, and this was mediated by their lower social dominance orientation.
Education has long been considered an important factor in shaping attitudes and behavior. A growing body of research suggests that individuals’ educational experiences influence their inferences about both the physical (
A variety of studies have been conducted on the impact of college education on the values, beliefs, and behaviors across a variety of domains, including sexuality (e.g., at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece—
Beyond the general liberalizing effect of higher education, existing research has also begun to examine how the specific content of one’s education predicts attitudes and behavioral outcomes. Studies that have focused on attitudinal correlates of educational discipline have largely focused on political attitudes, and found that relative to those whose fields focus on corporations and profit, those whose fields focus on individuals and social groups tend to be more politically liberal (e.g., among members of professional groups, like APA psychologists—
Additional studies have extended these findings to behavioral outcomes. Relative to other majors, economics students emphasize self-interest in ultimatum games and allocate smaller amounts of money to the responder than did arts and science students (e.g., at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, USA—
Along a slightly different vein, studies have also found that the content of one’s college education influences more general tendencies towards openness to experience, with those in science fields displaying more openness than those majoring in other fields (e.g., at Saint Louis University in Missouri, USA—
While there is considerable consensus regarding the reliable relationship between education and attitudes about the social world, an ongoing debate exists regarding the process that accounts for such a relationship. Two primary hypotheses have been put forth. On the one hand, the self-selection hypothesis posits that individuals select disciplines that closely match their preexisting worldviews and ideologies (
On the other hand, the socialization hypothesis posits that educational disciplines vary in their underlying ideological assumptions, and that participation in higher education alters the individuals’ attitudes to match those in their chosen discipline.
In sum, the existing literature has compellingly demonstrated that educational attainment plays an important role in arbitrating attitudes towards a variety of social objects and, most notably, influences political orientation. Apart from this general consensus, however, the aforementioned research is largely equivocal on the conditions under which education exerts a liberalizing effect and the underlying process that accounts for this relationship. While various studies have examined the effect of studying discipline-specific constructs on attitudes towards that construct (e.g., biology major’s beliefs concerning the evolutions of species—
Psychologists have long noted that personal values influence both the questions that are asked across academic disciplines and the methods used in arriving at the answers. Many scholars have consistently been concerned with the moral and social ramifications of their empirical endeavors (
We hypothesized that the same scientific ethos that serves to guide empirical inquiries also facilitates the development of more liberal political attitudes via concerns about social dominance and hierarchy. Given science’s emphasis on rationality, impartiality, fairness, progress, and the idea that we are to use these rational tools for the mutual benefit of all people in society (
Importantly, our prediction that social dominance orientation would emerge as a mediator in accounting for the predicted link between science education and political liberalism is consistent with current conceptualizations of SDO—namely, the Group Socialization Model, which posits that people’s social dominance orientation changes as a function of their social context (
The present research builds upon the Group Socialization Model of SDO (
We empirically examined the link between educational discipline and political attitudes across four studies. We predicted that being educated in a hard science discipline (i.e., one that relies on the systematic use of the scientific method as the primary way of acquiring information about the world), as opposed to a non-science or social science discipline, would predict greater political liberalism, and that this effect would not be accounted for by solely self-selection (Studies 1, 2). Furthermore, we predicted that an individual’s social dominance orientation (SDO—
Study 1 examined the relationship between individuals’ choice of academic discipline and political attitudes. Undergraduate students across disciplines completed a questionnaire concerning their choice of college concentration and their attitudes towards a variety of political issues, including healthcare (e.g., equal healthcare accessibility), the economy (e.g., government regulations of the free market), foreign policy (e.g., U.S. support of allies), and social issues (e.g., abortion). We predicted that individuals in the hard sciences, or those who rigorously use the scientific method as the primary way of acquiring information, would exhibit more politically liberal attitudes across domains relative to individuals in the non-sciences and more social sciences. Specifically, we predicted that this effect would emerge among those who had substantive exposure to discipline-specific education (i.e., upper years), but not among those who had not (i.e., lower years).
One hundred and ninety-six students from a university in New England participated voluntarily in an online study. The average age was 20.60 years. For a complete breakdown of participants’ major by gender and year, please see
Study | Field | Gender (% male) | Class (% upperclassmen) |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Science (44%) | 25% | 51% |
Social science (23%) | 28% | 34% | |
Non-sciences (33%) | 29% | 46% | |
2 | Science (44%) | 21% | 52% |
Social Science (22%) | 27% | 62% | |
Non-sciences (34%) | 21% | 68% | |
3 | Science (38%) | 41% | --a |
Social Science (31%) | 6% | --a | |
Non-sciences (31%) | 28% | --a |
aStudy 3 relied on national sample of both current college enrollees and graduates, and thus class status in college was not computed given that a portion of the sample had graduated.
Participants completed a political attitudes questionnaire that included 18 statements reflecting perspectives on current political issues.i The statements were varied to express both liberal and conservative beliefs (e.g., “Welfare programs make people dependent on the government for provisions” and “Welfare is necessary to bring fairness to American economic life”; see Appendix). Participants rated their level of agreement with each statement on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (
In addition, participants entered their intended or declared major (i.e., “what is your intended or declared major?”) and year in college, along with basic demographic information (i.e., age, gender). Participants’ choice of discipline was coded as science, social science, or non-science. Disciplines that relied on the systematic application of empirical methods to construct consistent, predictive models of the physical and natural world (e.g.,
Finally, exposure (to discipline) was operationalized using year in college; first and second years were categorized as low exposure/lower years whereas third and fourth years were categorized as high exposure, or upper years.iv
There was no effect of gender, and no interactions involving gender on political attitudes (both
An Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) with discipline and exposure (i.e., upper vs. lower year) revealed no main effect of exposure,
As predicted, a significant discipline by exposure interaction also emerged,
Study 1 offered preliminary evidence for a divergence in political attitudes between individuals in hard sciences vs. social science and non-science disciplines. Across domains, those who are in scientific fields exhibited greater political liberalism compared to those in non-hard-scientific fields. Furthermore, we cast strong doubt on the self-selection explanation that posits the role of pre-existing individual differences in accounting for these effects. By demonstrating that the link between scientific study and political liberalism only holds for those who had relatively high levels of exposure to discipline-specific education (i.e., third and fourth years), but not those who had yet been extensively exposed (i.e., first and second years), these findings suggest that discipline-specific socialization processes—and not merely self-selection—account for the relationship between academic discipline and political attitudes. However, the question remains as to the underlying process that accounts for such a relationship. To test our prediction that studying scientific disciplines promotes lower social dominance orientation, we conducted Study 2.
As a psychological construct, political liberalism has been linked to a number of different variables, including measures of resistance to change (e.g., openness to experience, uncertainty tolerance, integrative complexity, need for order/structure/closure, fear of threat and loss, dogmatism, intolerance of ambiguity—for review, see
To account for the possibility that other mechanisms may explain the link between science and political liberalism, we also tested a potential alternative mediator, individual differences in resistance to ambiguity and change. Like SDO, resistance to change has been consistently linked to political attitudes, and numerous studies using various operationalizations of this construct (e.g., openness to experience, uncertainty tolerance, integrative complexity, need for order/structure/closure, fear of threat and loss, dogmatism, intolerance of ambiguity) have found convergent evidence that those more resistant to change tend to be more politically conservative (for review, see
One hundred undergraduate students from the same university in New England as in Study 1 (78% female) participated voluntarily in the study (see
Prior to the political attitudes questionnaire, participants completed the Social Dominance Orientation Scale (SDO;
Participants subsequently rated their agreement with three current controversial political issues: same-sex marriage, affirmative action, and the Affordable Care Act. These specific issues were chosen because of their relevance to the current political sphere and bipartisan nature (i.e., they are contested issues that tend to divide American liberals and conservatives). Participants indicated their support for each issue on a scale from 1 (
Finally, participants indicated their intended or declared college major from a list of all majors offered and their year in college, along with demographic information (age, gender, race, and subjective socioeconomic status).
Participants’ majors were coded as hard science, social science, or non-science using the same criteria from the previous study; representation of majors were similar to that of Study 1: among the sciences, biology (51%) and psychology (33%) were by far the most represented; among the social sciences, political science/government (33%), economics (28%), and social studies (28%) were the primary fields represented; among the non-sciences, history (39%), comparative studies (19%), and various languages/literatures (13%) were the most commonly represented. Participants’ exposure was also coded as high or low using the same criteria.v
There was no effect of gender and no gender by major interaction on political attitudes (
A univariate ANOVA revealed a marginal effect of major on political attitudes,
To test the possibility of mediated moderation, discipline (hard science vs. non-hard science), year (upper vs. lower classmen) and SDO were entered into a bootstrap analysis predicting political attitudes, as recommended for mediation analyses with small samples (see
We also tested the alternative mediator, individual differences in resistance to ambiguity and change (i.e., dialecticism). While this individual difference measure significantly predicted political attitudes, as expected based on the past literature (
In addition, we examined demographic variables like race and socioeconomic status as potential confounds given past findings that have suggested factors like race and class to be linked to both participation in specific academic fields (e.g.,
Together, Studies 1 and 2 provided convergent evidence that studying science, relative to studying the non-sciences or social sciences, promoted more politically liberal attitudes across a variety of domains. However, both studies were conducted using samples from a singular New England University. Thus, to test the generalizability and replicability of the effects, Study 3 was conducted using a more diverse sample of participants and a more general measure of political liberalism.
Fifty-eight participants (38% men;
As in the previous study, participants completed a measure of SDO (
Participants’ majors were coded as hard science, social science, or non-science using the same criteria from the previous studies. Among the hard sciences, engineering sciences (38%), psychological/clinical sciences (29%), the various forms of biology (14%) were the most commonly represented; among the social sciences, economics (33%), sociology/anthropology (33%), and political science (17%); among the non-sciences, the various forms of arts (31%), comparative studies (26%), and languages (11%).vi
There was no effect of gender and no gender by major interaction on the dependent variable of interest, political liberalism (both
A univariate ANOVA revealed a significant effect of major on political attitudes,
To test whether the effects of major on political liberalism were mediated by SDO, we conducted the following regressions comparing hard science and non-hard-science majors. In the first regression equation, political liberalism was regressed on major (0 = hard science, 1 = non-hard science). This regression equation is similar to the ANOVA results reported above; as expected, major significantly predicted political liberalism, β = -.34,
As recommended for small samples, we used nonparametric bootstrapping analyses (see
Studies 1-3 relied on choice of major to predict political attitudes, and found convergent evidence that majoring in a science-related field led to greater political liberalism. In explaining this effect, it was theorized that majoring in a science served as a proxy for endorsement of the broader scientific ethos, and endorsement of this ethos drove the effects on political attitudes. In order to directly assess the assumed underlying factor, endorsement of the scientific ethos, and assess the extent to which individual differences in this ethos would lead to the same results observed in the previous studies, Study 4 was conducted.
In line with past research on other dimensions (e.g., interdependence—
One hundred and eighteen participants (35% men) from the subject participation pools at York University in York, Canada (
Participants completed a series of four questions about their endorsement of the scientific ethos that were specifically devised for the present study by the authors: “How much do you believe in science?”; “To what extent do you think that science is used for the benefit of society?”; “To what extent do you believe in rationality (as opposed to subjectivity)?” and “To what extent do you believe in impartiality and fairness as the best ways to acquire knowledge?” Participants responded to all questions on a 1 (
In addition, participants completed the same SDO scale (
Gender did not predict self-reported political liberalism, or endorsement of the scientific ethos (
As predicted, endorsement of the scientific ethos predicted greater self-reported political liberalism, β = .27,
In the initial regression equation, political liberalism was regressed on endorsement of the scientific ethos, reported above. In the second regression equation, SDO was regressed on scientific ethos endorsement. Those who endorsed science more showed lower SDO relative to those who endorsed science less, β = -.21,
Once again, we used nonparametric bootstrapping analyses (see
Across four studies, we demonstrated the discipline-specific liberalizing effects of higher education. Relative to those studying non-sciences, students in the sciences exhibited greater political liberalism across a variety of domains (including foreign policy, healthcare, the economy) and a variety of social issues (e.g., gay marriage, affirmative action), as well as in general self-reported liberalism. These effects could not be accounted for merely by self-selection, but rather, emerged as the product of discipline-contingent socialization pressures. Furthermore, we elucidated one underlying mechanism that accounts for the relationship between science education and political liberalism, and demonstrated that those who study scientific disciplines are more politically liberal because they exhibit lower levels of social dominance orientation. Importantly, we replicated this mediational model using individual differences in endorsement of the scientific ethos.
These findings have several important implications. First, they offer a more nuanced look into the relationship between educational attainment and political attitudes. Although the existing literature has long noted that greater time spent in higher education is a powerful predictor of liberal political orientations (
Second, the present results suggest that the study of science itself holds normative implications and leads to political outcomes. Previous research has noted that science can be value-laden insofar as the extent to which personal values influence both the questions that are asked and the methods used in arriving at the answers (
Third, our findings offer further evidence for the Group Socialization Model of Social Dominance, or the conceptualization of social dominance orientation as a mediator that changes as a function of social context (
These contributions notwithstanding, the present research holds several limitations. Theoretically speaking, the alternative argument can be made that rather than science promoting more political liberal orientations, social constructionism (i.e., an idea prevalent in the social sciences) should be associated with political liberalism (e.g.,
This relates to the broader question of assumed homogeneity and representation of different majors within a discipline. Given that there is not equal representation of all majors and that within a discipline, variability across majors exists, one alternative explanation is that the present findings are limited to the group of most commonly represented majors in these studies. While the differential representation of majors is an inevitable outcome of certain majors being more impacted than others, the crux of our argument is about how studying and endorsing science—and specifically, the scientific ethos—influences political attitudes; this ethos is consistent across majors within the hard sciences, but is not central (or as central) in the social sciences and non-sciences. Thus, we contend that variability among the social sciences and non-sciences, while important and notable, are not directly relevant to our hypothesis. Furthermore, our finding that individual differences in endorsement of the scientific ethos produces effects parallel to that of majoring in a hard science provides concurrent evidence for our prediction. This latter finding was limited in that we did not measure major and endorsement of the scientific ethos simultaneously (i.e., within the same study), and our measure of the scientific ethos was a newly constructed scale that has not been previously validated. Future studies can more closely examine whether more nuanced distinctions exist as a function of studying different majors within a discipline. Additional studies can also aim to test the predictive validity of the scientific ethos measure in other theoretically meaningful contexts.
A related consideration is the extent to which these findings are generalizable across contexts. The present research contained individuals from a limited number of universities, most of which were based in the USA or Canada, and as such the question of how universal these patterns are across regional and cultural contexts remains an open question. This is particularly the case given that political systems vary widely and the polarization between liberals and conservatives studied here is largely a US-based one that may not apply in other countries. Additional research is needed to more closely examine these more nuanced considerations across disciplines, universities, and cultures.
More broadly, an additional limitation of the present studies is the reliance on cross-sectional, correlational data. As with previous studies on the effects of educational discipline on attitudinal outcomes (e.g.,
One final limitation of the present research is the reliance on explicitly reported political attitudes. Given the relative liberal environment of college campuses in general, one possibility is that disciplinary differences in social desirability concerns exist, and those in science-related disciplines explicitly reported greater political liberalism and lower social dominance because of such concerns regarding what is socially desirable. Future studies can more closely tackle these limitations by examining implicit political attitudes and their link to the explicit political attitudes reported her in order to investigate whether the disciplinary divergence in political orientation also extends to implicit measures of political orientation.
In conclusion, the present work elucidates an important feature of how and when higher education emerges as a potent predictor of political attitudes. Four studies have offered convergent evidence that the liberalizing effect of education is moderated by discipline; those majoring in the hard sciences tend to display more liberal political attitudes than those in other disciplines. The scientific ethos that serves to guide empirical inquiries in the hard sciences facilitated the development of more liberal political attitudes via concerns about fairness and equality.
The government should legalize marijuana.
Government should not have the right to take a person’s life away.
Abortions are primarily about a matter of choice.
I believe that government should define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
Capital punishment acts as a strong deterrence for crimes.
Taxes on higher income brackets are currently too low.
Welfare is necessary to bring fairness to American economic life.
The government needs to protect citizens from big corporations with things such as consumer agencies and regulations.
Welfare programs make people dependent on the government for provisions.
The government should use a flat tax as opposed to a graduated income tax.
A free market system with little government interference creates the greatest opportunity and the highest standard of living for all.
Maintaining our current defense spending is crucial to protecting US interests.
The government should solely provide aid to countries that support our interests.
Relying on military force to defeat terrorism creates animosity that leads to more terrorism.
Countries that support US foreign policies always deserve US support.
Negotiating without preconditions makes the United States appear weak.
The government should provide equal health care benefits for all, regardless of their ability to pay.
I support a competitive, free market health care system instead of government provided health care.
We thank Joni Sasaki, Norman Zhu, Stephanie McConell, and the members of the Harvard Decision Science Lab for their valuable assistance with data collection.
The authors have no funding to report.
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Participants also completed additional questions on their attitudes towards the environment, but these were not included in the political liberalism composite because they did not theoretically reflect liberal versus conservative political attitudes.
Given the suboptimal alpha, we also ran the analysis including the nature of the political topic as a factor to test if the effects are specific to certain political domains but not others. We conducted a mixed model ANOVA with major and class status (upper vs. lower years) as between-subject participant factors, along with subtopic as a within-subject participant factor, in predicting political attitudes. The results were consistent with the primary findings described in the main text (i.e., a main effect of major,
There were five cases where a participant indicated a double major; in all such cases, both majors belonged to the same discipline: history and East-Asian studies (
We collapsed across first/second years and third/fourth years for the same reasons outlined in Study 1. In addition, we re-ran our analysis including year in college as a factor; the same pattern of results emerged as those reported in the main text: a marginal effect of discipline emerged,
There were four cases of double majors, two that involved majors within the same discipline (anthropology/political science, english/history) and two that did not (psychology/english; psychology/history). In the two cases where one of the majors was a hard science and the other was not, they were coded as hard science, given that our hypothesis centers on exposure to science and double majors concentrating on a hard science meets that criteria. As with Study 1, representation of the different majors within a discipline reflect the first major indicated in all such cases of double majors.
We also ran these analyses with sample (i.e., York University undergraduates; Decision Science Lab community participants) as a covariate. While the two samples did not differ in political liberalism,