Cultural Values and Their Effects on Citizen's Economic-Political Attitudes

Accordingly, in the present study, it has been tried that using the Schwartz theory of basic human values, the effects of cultural values can be investigated on citizens’ orientations towards right/left thoughts in economic domains and also Conservatism/Liberalism in political and social domains among citizens of Isfahan City. The results of the study indicated that individuals who have fewer and weaker transcendental values mostly move towards tendencies of free market in economic domains. In addition, findings indicate that the avoidance of expansive changes, control of threats, and efforts for coping with one’s own anxieties obviously cause the tendency towards conservative parties, but, when individuals’ anxiety about lives and fortunes of other humans, or even the environment increase, this issue causes that citizens tend towards more democratic parties. Finally, findings of the research indicate that cultural values can explain variations of right/left economic attitudes more than more than twice as demographic variables. In addition, these values can explain variations of sociocultural conservatism/liberalism about four times higher than the demographic variables.