How Norms Shape the Nature and Origins of Mass Belief Systems

Why do Americans traditionally lack ideological constraint? Are they ignorant of “what goes with what,” or might they simply be pragmatic? Combining widely used survey questions with an incentivized coordination game, we separately measure individuals’ policy positions and normative consensus within ideological groups across a series of issues. This allows us to distinguish knowledge of ideological norms about what goes with what from consistent adherence to those norms (constraint). We find that a non-trivial portion of those lacking constraint on an issue can nonetheless correctly identify their ideological group’s norm on that issue. Moreover, a question order experiment reveals that priming ideological norms before measuring policy preferences promotes ideological constraint. Together, these findings suggest longstanding concern over Americans’ “ideological innocence” may be misplaced. Low constraint may indicate pragmatism, not necessarily ignorance, and high constraint likely indicates motivation to conform to group norms, not just knowledge of “what goes with what.”