Components of the Belief Gap

Cecilie Gaziano

SAGE Open, 2014, vol. 4, issue 1, 2158244013518052

Abstract: Knowledge gap research focuses on education as an indicator of socioeconomic status (SES). Belief gap research centers on ideology as potentially more powerful than education in comparing sociopolitical groups with scientifically established knowledge and groups with opposing beliefs accepted on faith. This study examined the relationship between education and ideology to understand belief gaps better. The study used 2008 American National Election Study (ANES) data to compare conservatives, moderates, and liberals by education on religiosity, child rearing values, opinionation, need for cognition, orientation toward politics, and mass media access and use. Although liberals tended to be more educated than conservatives overall, better-educated conservatives had the highest household incomes and were a much larger group. No known knowledge gap studies have reported results on one group characterized by high education and an opposing group distinguished by a different indicator of SES. Reformulations of the belief gap hypothesis are offered.

Keywords: politics and social sciences; belief gap; knowledge gap; ideology; religiosity; child rearing values; mass media; need for cognition; opinionation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:4:y:2014:i:1:p:2158244013518052

DOI: 10.1177/2158244013518052

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