Why do people vote the way they do?

[patoadam]

I would like to know why people hold the political opinions they do and vote the way they do. (Translation: Why doesn't everyone agree with my obviously correct political opinions and vote the way I do?) I have listed some popular explanations below. I should mention that the brief summaries I give do not do justice to the writers' nuanced arguments.

How can I tell which hypotheses are correct? Or are they all correct, as in the parable of the blind men and the elephant? Or is it impossible to answer "why" questions, because correlation does not imply causation? Can you suggest other theories I'm not familiar with?

Conservatives are authoritarian; liberals aren't.
Mark J. Hetherington and Jonathan D. Weiler, Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics

Conservatives come from strict-father families; liberals come from nurturant-parent families.
George Lakoff, The Political Mind and Don't Think of an Elephant

Conservative are more easily squicked than liberals.
See this article

Morality is based on five principles: caring for others, fairness/reciprocity, group loyalty, respect for authority, and purity/sanctity. Liberals base their beliefs on the first two principles; conservatives base their beliefs on all five principles.
Jonathan Haidt, as described at moralfoundations.org

Political opinions are based on emotion, not reasoning.
The Political Brain, by Drew Westen

Blue-collar workers, who used to be liberal for economic reasons, have become increasingly conservative because conservative politicians have increasingly emphasized social issues such as abortion and gay marriage.
Thomas Frank, What's the Matter With Kansas?

Comments

[catalana.livejournal.com]

I suspect that these are all overly simplistic; I think there is likely a lot of variation as to why people vote the way they do. (For instance, I'm socially liberal and fiscally conservative. There is no party that does that, so I vote all over the map.)

[patoadam]

This article concludes that some people are socially liberal and fiscally conservative, and some people are socially conservative and fiscally liberal. They seem to think they have discovered something profound. If they have, I missed it.

(They also say that people who are socially liberal and fiscally conservative or socially conservative and fiscally liberal tend to vote Republican. I find this surprising. I am socially liberal and fiscally conservative, and I consistently vote Democratic. I see no evidence that Republicans run smaller budget deficits than Democrats. Persistent structural budget deficits began with Reagan. The only President since then who ran a balanced budget was Clinton. Every Republican President since Eisenhower has increased the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP, and every Democratic President since Kennedy has decreased it.

Social conservatives might be more likely to vote Democratic if they knew that the only President since the time of Roe v. Wade who managed to reduce the abortion rate significantly was a Democrat. (Clinton, by 23% to 30% depending on how you interpret the data.)

Re social liberals and fiscal conservatives

[patoadam]

Upon further reflection, I think I overstated my case in my earlier comment. My arguments apply only to Presidential elections. There are undoubtedly some Republicans running for other offices who genuinely want to balance the budget and don't indiscriminately cut taxes.

Thanks for a thought-provoking comment.