VERY interesting study ~ and I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, today's extreme GOP/TPer antics might also be playing a subconscious role ~ I took the quiz [live-linked below] and, not surprisingly, ranked as "very liberal" on the 12 questions ~ hope some of you will take the quiz too ~ Sooz

Study finds young Republicans are more liberal than they think
By Eric W. Dolan
Monday, June 17, 2013 18:43 EDT

Public polls and voter registrations may be underestimating the number of liberals and independents in the United States. Young conservatives believe they are more conservative than they actually are, according to a study published June 13 in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Ethan Zell of the University of North Carolina and Michael J. Bernstein of Pennsylvania State University, the authors of the study, said conservatives could be more prone to biased self-perceptions because they tend to exhibit higher levels of in-group loyalty.

“Conservatives value group loyalty more than liberals,” Zell told PsyPost. “We assumed that this desire for loyalty might lead conservatives to see themselves as more representative members of the Republican Party than would be reflected by their attitudes on specific issues. Thus, conservative young adults might want to see themselves as typical or true Republicans, when their attitudes suggest that they are really only slightly conservative or even independent.”

The three-part study, which included 713 participants, compared young Americans’ self-reported political orientation to a 12-item objective measure of political orientation. The political orientation test was developed by the Pew Research Center and can be taken at PBS.org.

Zell and Bernstein found most people’s self-reported political orientation did not entirely reflect their actual political positions. In particular, self-reported “Liberal Democrats” overestimated their liberalism, while self-reported “Independents,” “Moderate Republicans,” “Average Republicans,” and “Conservative Republicans” tended to underestimate their liberalism.

“In sum, the present research identified a systematic bias among young adults to perceive themselves as somewhat more conservative than they actually are,” the researchers concluded.

Like any behavioral study, Zell and Bernstein noted their research had limitations. The study did not account for libertarians, who tend to be economically conservative and socially liberal. The study also focused on young adults, who tend to be more liberal in general.

“Young adults who consider themselves conservative might espouse relatively liberal attitudes on issues in which there are generational changes (i.e., support gay marriage and immigration),” Zell and Bernstein wrote.

Originally published on PsyPost.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/17/study-finds-young-republicans-are-more-liberal-than-they-think/

-)

I'm almost off the scale as an extreme liberal, which sheds an interesting light of one of the major differences between US and Australian political rhetoric.
There is no way in the world I'll be voting for the Liberal Party of Australia in the next elections, and I would NEVER describe myself as a Liberal (although I would accept "liberal").

I'm very liberal.

I'm about 1/4" right of the left margin of the scale, which surprised me, as I think of myself as more consevative than that. I think there's more to being conservative than what's in the test. Interesting that it was labeled a "party" test, but the results were expressed in terms of liberal and conservative.

i rated very liberal.

I rated very liberal also. I don't think the test was valid or reliable.

i came to the same conclusion.

I rated way more liberal than I think I am. I noticed a slant toward liberal ideas in the questions. If there had been more questions about laws, crime, government services and economic control I may have rated more conservative.But as an atheist who doesn't care who you marry and believes corporate profits are obscene these days I guess that's liberal.

The survey is primarily a listing of what the right wing thinks liberal values are. The questions have nothing to do with what is actually conservative or liberal. It's no wonder most young Republicans scored as somewhat liberal. Anybody two brain cells north of Dick Cheney would have scored liberal.