UCB Study linking preschool personality to political orientation draws wide attention

Starting in the 1960s, the Blocks tracked more than 100 young children in two Berkeley area nursery schools as part of a general study of cognitive and ego development. The personalities of the 3-and 4-year-olds were evaluated by the nursery school teachers who knew them.

Twenty years later, the Blocks followed up with more surveys. Data collected for 95 of the original participants found that those "relatively conservative at age 23 were described as feeling easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive, fearful, rigid, inhibited and relatively over-controlled and vulnerable." Meanwhile, preschool children who turned out to be liberals were characterized as "developing close relationships, self-reliant, energetic, somewhat dominating, relatively under-controlled and resilient."

In the study, Block says it should be taken into account that the "sample" is limited to those born in the late 1960s and reared in Berkeley and Oakland, presenting "an enveloping cultural context appreciably different from much of America." However, he says, "any sample bias carries no implication whatsoever regarding analyses of individual differences conducted within the sample."

As for whether these characteristics mean liberals are superior, Block points out in the study, "Ironically, the sheer variety of changes and improvements suggested by the liberal-minded under-controller may explain the diffuseness, and subsequent ineffectiveness, of liberals in politics where a collective single-mindedness of purpose so often is required."

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/03/23_block.shtml