The Civic Costs of Individualism

• In Event: Mechanisms Explaining Policy Attitudes

Abstract

Our primary goal is to enrich the concept of individualism by examining the relationship between the self and external sources of authority. While political philosophers, historians, political psychologists, and social psychologists have long agreed that individualism is a core American value, empirical political scientists tend to focus primarily on its relevance to economic behaviors and attitudes. We agree that economic individualism is important, but economic relationships are only part of the notion of individualism that political philosophers and historians have identified. Empirical research into the meaning and effects of individualism has, therefore, only partially captured the depth and breadth of the theoretical construct. For this reason, we argue for an additional form of individualist attitudes, which we label “assertive individualism,” that involves two complementary ideas from the liberal tradition: 1) the belief that authority external to the self constrains liberty; 2) and only moral choices that are self-authorized are legitimate. Assertive individualists see the need to resist the claims of external authorities in their behavior and they see themselves as the primary source of moral authority – more important than the external institutions that might make moral claims about what is right and wrong.

We tested this theory in the context of a YouGov survey of a nationally representative sample of 2,000 adult respondents in the summer of 2018. We employed an original, two-step approach to measuring individualism in which respondents first indicated the most important influences or authorities in their lives, then responded to a series of questions designed to explore how willing the respondent was to reject the advice and preferences of that authority. The resulting measure of “assertive individualism” appears to have strong psychometric properties and to be empirically distinct from economic individualism, authoritarianism, and other relevant measures. In addition, the specific referent chosen by the respondent matters: respondents who prized religious or scientific authorities were less willing to resist those authorities in moral decision-making than were respondents who looked first to family or friends. We also find that even after controlling for economic individualism, partisanship, ideology, and other relevant characteristics, this new measure of individualism is associated with distinct views about the meaning of the American Dream, the limits of government power, and a willingness to engage in the collective life of the community. While assertive individualists are more invested in the pursuit of individual freedoms (an important element of liberal society), they are simultaneously less willing to participate in the civic life of the polity and to recognize the need for government action to solve collective dilemmas. Assertive individualists are thus less invested in the collective institutions that undergird the very freedoms they prize most.

Authors

• Christopher F. Karpowitz, Brigham Young University

• Kelly D. Patterson, Brigham Young University