Prius Or Pickup?: How the Answers to Four Simple Questions Explain America's Great Divide

by Marc Hetherington

This probably seems like a controversial claim. If people’s political beliefs are hardwired, wouldn’t it mean that Americans all emerge from the womb as Democrats and Republicans? It doesn’t: physiology does not determine how people behave politically. Instead, how a person’s physiological differences express themselves depends on that person’s environment—the context in which he or she lives. It is the combination of wiring and environment that is important, not solely one or the other. Most research on ordinary citizens identifies early-childhood socialization, particularly the role of parents in a child’s life, as one of the biggest determinants of that child’s future political outlook. Other forms of socialization—whether people’s parents and those in their communities were Republicans or Democrats, religious or not, rich or poor—are important, too. The genes children inherit from their parents are thus one factor among many. Indeed, physiology and socialization likely reinforce each other—but not always. Moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt puts it well when he observes that we’re born with a “first draft of the mind”—a first draft that can be edited, if not completely rewritten, by familial, social, and cultural contexts.