Testing the demographic explanation of attitude trends: Secular trends in attitudes among US householders, 1972-1996

This paper tests Stinchcombe's theory of "Demographic Explanations" using 38 demographics and 45 attitude items in the National Opinion Research Center's General Social Survey 1972-1996. The results support the theory in that multiple regressions with four appropriate demographics can explain about 40% of the change in the typical attitude and results are consistent across a variety of topics. Nevertheless, demographics seldom completely account for any particular trend. I argue that the theory is not as banal as it might seem since (1) it can and sometimes does fail; (2) its "multiplication principle" gives a new perspective on social change; and (3) it lays a burden of proof at the feet of more sophisticated approaches. (C) 2001 Academic Press.