CHANGEABLE WEATHER IN A COOLING CLIMATE ATOP THE LIBERAL PLATEAU: CONVERSION AND REPLACEMENT IN FORTY-TWO GENERAL SOCIAL SURVEY ITEMS, 1972-1989

This article tracks trends (early 1970s to late 1980s) in U.S.opinion for 42 General Social Survey items with liberal/ conservativeovertones. The broad question is whether the great "liberal"shift since World War II has ended; the narrow issue is therelative importance of cohort succession and intracohort shifts.Despite common impressions, the overall trend is more liberalthan conservative, but it conceals opposing "weather" and "climate"processes. Within cohorts ("weather") I find a conservativetrend between the early and late 1970s and a liberal "rebound"in the 1980s. Between cohorts virtually all items show smallbut cumulative liberalizing produced by cohort succession. Thesecohort effects are declining in magnitude because the associationbetween year of birth and liberalism is nonlinear. I find acurvilinearity such that Americans born after World War II arenot consistently more liberal than their predecessors. Thisshift is not explained by the lesser schooling of youngest adultsor by ceiling effects. Consequently, I predict lessening ofthe liberalizing "climate" produced by cohort succession. Allthese propositions are qualified, depending on the topic, andthe analysis takes heed of the notorious age/period/cohort identificationproblem.