Why people become more conservative over the years

“Who in his youth was not a revolutionary - he has no heart, and who in maturity did not become a conservative - he has no brains” - this phrase in various variations is attributed to Francois Guizot, Benjamin Disraeli and Winston Churchill, and it seems to belong to it, French lawyer Ansel Batby.

The older people get, the more often they vote for conservative politicians. Especially the adherence to traditional views increases after 50 years. Moreover, it is not limited only to the political position. You may have noticed how, having matured, you began to treat adolescents with greater caution: you do not understand their culture, do not share their values, do not agree with their motives.

Let's figure out whether people really become more conservative with age and why this happens.

How a person's personality can change with age

Throughout life, a person gains new experiences and rethinks their beliefs. Our character and worldview are not monolithic: they change over time.

To study them, psychologists use a five-factor personality model - the "Big Five". The assessment is carried out according to the following criteria: extraversion, benevolence, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness to new things.

An analysis of these indicators in people of different years found that certain age-related changes are often traced in characters. So, by the age of 30, the majority of people have decreased extraversion, while benevolence and emotional stability, on the contrary, grow. But the most important thing is that after 30, the level of openness to new things and readiness to experiment begins to fall.

About a hundred studies show similar findings, and according to Belgian scientists, this explains the conservatism of older people. Moreover, it is more about adherence to traditional values in everyday life, and not about economic and political convictions. Older people also prefer Chamorro ‑ Premuzic T. Why Are Older People More Conservative? Psychology Today is specific to abstract thinking, and old knowledge and beliefs are more important for them than new ones. They are also more likely to experience the stress of change.

It should be noted here that changes in worldview are very individual. Studies of the same political preferences show that those who have changed their beliefs during their lifetime are more likely to strengthen conservative views. That is, a conservative who has become a liberal is more likely to return to old positions with age.

Why the older generation is more inclined towards conservatism

Researchers mainly cite two reasons.

There are many stereotypes around age

As shown by a survey conducted in 26 countries, including Russia, in different cultures there are absolutely identical stereotypes about age groups. Namely:

adolescents are impulsive, trusting and undisciplined;
middle-aged people are conscientious, distrustful and more organized;
older people are calm, friendly, less active, and the most conservative of all.

The reason for this is in the well-established ideas about the social roles of a person: schoolchildren, students, parents, grandparents. We not only project them onto others, but we ourselves adjust our behavior to them, trying not to fall out of the “norm”.

Some scientists believe that with age, a person loses the ability to resist stereotypes due to a general weakening of mental acuity. For example, older people have higher racial bias scores on implicit association tests and are better at remembering stories with a similar plot. And Belgian researchers concluded that conservatism is usually combined with high self-esteem in older people.

Other studies do suggest the opposite: that over the years, on the contrary, we have less prejudice about race, gender, age, and so on. For example, an article published in the American Sociological Review cites data from the US General Social Survey. According to them, in 2004 the respondents were more liberal about the distribution of household responsibilities in the family and interracial relations than in 1972. How society and the processes occurring in it affect this is still a big question.

Society is changing rapidly and the generation gap is widening

When people talk about conservatism of older people, they often do not take into account the difference between generations. This is incorrect, since the conventional generation of baby-boomers (people born in 1946-1964) grew up Chamorro-Premuzic T. Why Are Older People More Conservative? Psychology Today in completely different conditions, with different morals and norms of morality, than, for example, Zoomers (born in 1997-2012).

The human value system is largely formed in youth. At the same time, progress and social change are accelerating more and more. And in this case, the emergence of serious differences can be observed even between chronologically close to each other generations.

Therefore, it is not strange that older people seem more conservative to us, because they were born and raised in a more conservative world. And in it they are most likely Chamorro-Premuzic T. Why Are Older People More Conservative? Psychology Today were "revolutionaries."

Disputes between generations are as old as human history. We cannot know what views older people would hold if their youth passed in a more liberal era.

Of course, statistics from psychometric research do not apply to every individual. Worldview, character - all these are individual traits that will differ from person to person. There is an opinion of Chamorro ‑ Premuzic T. Why Are Older People More Conservative? Psychology Today that people with age become, as it were, a concentrated version of themselves. That is, all our qualities are manifested in all their glory over the years. Perhaps the same applies to conservatism, for the time being hidden deep within us.