Ideological constraint and behavioral consistency—A person-centered approach to political attitudes and Public Goods Games behavior

A long-standing debate in research on the political attitudes of the mass public concerns the extent to which these attitudes are ideologically constrained. Another, more recent debate, asks whether these attitudes are indicative of more general social behavior. We investigated (1) how ideologically constrained the preferences of the mass public are and (2) whether ideological differences are associated with actual social behavior. To shed new light on these entrenched debates we employed a person-centered approach—latent profile analysis (LPA). A sample of German students ( N = 659) responded to a questionnaire assessing attitudes toward currently contested topics (e.g., immigration, environmental policy) and played the Public Goods Game. By means of LPA, we identified four rather distinct groups. The Normative (46.0%) and the Anti-gay (16.4%) expressed the average opinion on all issues, with the exception that the latter were strongly against gay rights. The Progressive (28.9%) supported, across all issues, greater equality. This group also gave most in the Public Goods Game. The Right-Wing (7.0%) had strong views that were exactly the reverse image of those of the Progressive. Women were disproportionately progressive, and men Right-Wing or Anti-gay. Non-native speakers were disproportionately Anti-gay. We suggest that the Progressive and the Right-Wing were ideologically constrained in the customary sense—they were consistent from one issue to the next. We argue that the Normative and Anti-gay were also ideologically constrained—those believing themselves to have stepped out of ideology are in our interpretation the most enslaved by ideology.