Return of the Fifties?

Dean R. and Jann L. Hoge

from: Dean R. Hoge and Jann L. Hoge, "The Return of the Fifties?: Values Trends at the University of Michigan, 1952 to 1989" (Sociological Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 4 [1992]), pp. 611- 23.

Thirty-one items on six identical surveys of Michigan undergraduates between 1952 and 1989 help assess the notion that there has been a "return to the fifties." Several elements of the fifties have returned:

privatism
concern about loyalty and subversion
conservatism in some personal morals

Other elements have not returned to the 1950s:

levels of "other-directedness"
traditional religious commitment
trust in human nature.

The level of *combined* political conservatism and personal individualism in the 1980s was vastly higher than in the 1950s.

Question                      1952 1969 1972 1979 1984 1989
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Anyone who serves in the      60%  35   27   42   55   61
armed forces is doing some-
thing worthwhile for our
country

Only people whose loyalty to  52   12    6    8   11   21
the government has been
proved should run for
public office.

Democracy depends funda-      67   51   37   52   58   58
mentally on the existence
of free business.

It's unwise to give people    42   18   13   18   21   26
with dangerous social and
economic viewpoints a
chance to be elected.

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