Abstract
Objective
The impact of cognitive function and decline on political ideology is unknown. We studied the relationship between cognition and both political orientation and political policy choices in a population of older persons.
Methods
Participants were members of a longitudinal investigation of aging and dementia in the oldest‐old and resided in a retirement community or its surroundings in Southern California. We analyzed 151 individuals, mean age 95舁years, for political ideology and policy choices in relation to their cognitive status. The same political survey was mailed to participants twice: at time one and 6‐months later. Self‐identified political ideology/orientation was rank ordered from liberal (scored as 1) to conservative (scored as 7), and cognitive function was classified as normal (55%), cognitive impairment/not dementia (CIND) (33%), or dementia (12%). Political policy choices on six issues received scores ranging from liberal to conservative, and we calculated rank correlations between ideology and policy choices.
Results
Political ideology/orientation was highly consistent over a six‐month period (84% agreement) among the 122 who returned the second survey, with no significant relationship to cognitive status. Among cognitively impaired (CIND and dementia), however, there was significant loss of consistency between an individual’s political orientation and their policy choices. Level of political engagement was high for participants, with more than 90% voting in the most recent presidential election.
Conclusions
In this population of older persons, political identification on the liberal‐conservative spectrum was resilient despite cognitive decline, but its meaning and function were changed. For the cognitively impaired it remained a self‐defining label, but no longer operated as a higher order framework for orienting specific policy preferences. There appeared to be loss of coherence between the political orientation and political policy choices of cognitively impaired individuals. Given the high level of political engagement of these individuals, these results have substantial public policy implications.
This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.