Political Consequences of Inconsistency: The Accessibility and Stability of Abortion Attitudes

This paper investigates the political consequences of inconsistency for the accessibilityand self-assessed stability of attitudes toward abortion. Two different sources of inconsistencyare examined: cognitive inconsistency between abortion attitudes and ideological identifications,and social inconsistency between individual abortion attitudes and the attitudes of others withinthese individuals' networks of association. The data analyzed are drawn from theresponses of 2,174 registered voters in a 1996 election survey that used computer-assistedtelephone interviewing (which enabled measurement of response latencies). The analysis focusedon the relationships among the accessibility, self-assessed stability, and extremity of abortionattitudes; the consequences of cognitive inconsistency for the accessibility and self-assessedstability of abortion attitudes; and the consequences of socially inconsistent abortion attitudes forthe accessibility and stability of abortion attitudes.