Lifestyle: An Expression of Class Identification

Abstract

We all have stereotyped notions about how different sorts of lifestyles imply different political attitudes. We all have presumptions as to the sort of people who drive Priuses and sip lattes. Of course, our stereotypes change over time. Going back a few decades, driving a Volvo, drinking Perrier water, and eating brie invoked the same sort of cultural stereotypes. Yet with very few exceptions (e.g., Lipset and Ladd’s work on automobiles and political opinions among academics, Pierre Bourdieu’s analysis of French data) scholars have not bothered to find out whether the stereotypes have any basis in fact and, if they do, what it means.