First Name:
Sarah
Last Name:
Lackey
Major Department:
Department of Government and Justice Studies
Thesis Director:
Philip Ardoin
Date of Thesis:
May 2015
Society commonly believes that as individuals age they become more conservative. However, literature on the topic indicates that this may not be true. To understand what factors shape individuals’ attitudes about the federal government this research compares the Baby Boomer, Generation X, and Millennial generations attitudes towards the federal government and trust in government by utilizing questions from the 1978-2012 American National Elections Studies. By comparing mean attitudes of individuals at different stages in life along with conducting a linear regression this research finds that the most important factor contributing to the development of political attitudes is the year of the study or current political climate. However, factors such as age, generation, party identification, gender, race, and income are also found to be significant factors. The results indicate that individuals political attitudes are influenced by a variety of factors, thus to focus solely on age is too simplistic.