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HOW DO YOUR
POLITICAL VIEWS
COMPARE?
Several decades of research indicate most people are unaware of how their political views compare to those of others. We tend to exaggerate the extremity of views of people from the other party and minimize the extremity of our own views (or those within our party).
Choose the statement that comes closer to your own views (even if neither is exactly right). Then, click "See My Results" to see how your views compare.
HOW DOES
THIS WORK?
This quiz (and the results) are developed from an ideology measurement tool that has been administered in more than sixteen nationally representative samples by the Pew Foundation. Each of the questions above has a liberal slant and a conservative slant. By tracking patterns in which statement is closer to your own views, we assign you an overall score that ranges from very liberal to very conservative.
Political scientists have argued for decades about how to measure peoples' political ideologies, and no score is perfect. But remember that tens of thousands of Americans have taken the same quiz you just did-- and our tool reports their views. The average Democrat takes a conservative position on at least one issue, and vice versa. If you found yourself consistently agreeing with only liberal or conservative statements, then this means your views fall along the extremes of this continuum, according to this measure.
WHAT DOES
THIS MEAN?
WHAT SHOULD
I DO NEXT?
By now, we hope you've learned a lot about yourself, and how your activity on social media and political views fit into the bigger picture of the American population. But what about everyone else? How do you know if the people you are interacting with are moderates that could be persuaded to consider your views or extremists who delight in trolling you? To learn whether you've been interacting with a political troll, check out our Troll-o-meter.
F.A.Q.s
"The quiz forced me to take positions between two statements that I did not always agree with."
There are many different ways to measure someone's political views. But many studies indicate simply asking people whether they are "liberal" or "conservative" or members of one party or the other can be deeply flawed. For example, Sunshine's research indicates that many people who describe themselves as "independents" in surveys are actually people with views that are so extreme that they feel estranged from the Republican and Democratic Parties. Also, many Democrats have some conservative views, and vice versa (see above). Therefore, many social scientists believe the best way to measure people's ideologies is to ask them questions that force them to take a position on a set of issues. Even though we understand that everyone's opinion might not be represented by these types of statements, we assume that trends in answering patterns-- with enough questions-- will allow us to make the best estimate of your political views, and how they compare to others.
"Where can I learn more?"
To learn more, visit the Pew Foundation's webpage to learn about how this Ideological Consistency Scale was created.
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