The idea that the generation Z would be becoming more conservative than their elders has gained strength in recent years, driven by research carried out in other countries and by cultural phenomena such as “Adolescence“, the second most watched series in the history of Netflix.
A new study suggests that the story may be different — at least in Brazil.
According to the survey, carried out by Quaest at the request of the More in Common institute, although the majority of young Brazilians aged 16 to 24 — the age group that concentrates most of the generation Z— identify as conservative (68% among men and 62% among women), these rates are lower than those recorded among older generations.
In the assessment of Brazilian researchers, the discrepancy between the Brazilian study and the foreign ones is due to the methodologies adopted — abroad, they have generally been carried out using virtual interviews, while in Brazil face-to-face interviews were carried out, with an effort to cover different profiles of the population.
Executive director of More in Common and professor of public policy management at USP (University of São Paulo), Pablo Ortellado says that virtual research can generate distortions — especially in Brazil, due to limitations of Internet access in certain regions and between different social classes— and are more likely to reach audiences that already identify with or are interested in the debate, which can generate biased responses.
“On the internet, people agree to participate, because they want to collaborate or even because they receive some remuneration. This more voluntary The fact that the interviewee joins the panel, and not the other way around, can generate selection bias, because people who want to speak can be recruited, with certain characteristics that distort them in relation to the general population”, says Ortellado.
One of the surveys carried out in this way was that of King’s College with Ipsos. The researchers themselves, however, warned that their conclusions did not represent the general population, but more connected and urban segments — an especially relevant limitation in a country with such wide differences.
Published in March, the research King’s College heard 23,268 people in 29 countries, including Brazil, between December and January.
The main conclusion was that the generation Z is more conservative than the millennialsa group that brings together adults aged 30 to 45. Although data by age group has not been released for each country — which prevents us from verifying whether this pattern also applies to Brazil —, the general findings of the study differ from the results of the Quaest survey.
The problem, says Ortellado, was less in the studies and more in the way their conclusions were interpreted and amplified by reports and cultural phenomena.
He cites as an example the series “Adolescence“, about a boy who murders a classmate under the influence of misogynistic communities on the internet, and the popularization of machosphereas the masculinist communities on the internet and the movement are called “looksmaxxing“.
These are short videos, very common in TikTokwhich encourage young people to modify their appearance — through habit changesstyle and even aesthetic procedures— with the aim of becoming more masculine.
According to Ortellado, when these phenomena gain great repercussion in the media, the impression may arise that exacerbated masculinity among young people is more widespread than it really is.
This does not mean, he emphasizes, that these movements do not exist or are no longer a cause for concern. But they may only represent a portion of youth — precisely those most connected to social media and which, therefore, tends to be more present in research carried out on the internet, such as that of King’s College.
“The internet is not a faithful portrait of Brazilian society,” he says. “Many of these things are niche phenomena. We shouldn’t underestimate them. There are very worrying phenomena. There are misogyny organized on the internet and it is worrying. It needs to be monitored and combated. But the data suggests this does not appear to be a mass phenomenon.”
The researchers also emphasize that Brazilian research is not definitive on the topic, which still requires more studies. It is not possible to know, for example, whether Brazilians who are now between 25 and 34 years old were less conservative a decade ago, when they were between 16 and 24 years old.
This is a central question to understand whether there is a change in values among Brazilians. It is not yet known whether people become more conservative over the years or whether the differences observed between today’s generations tend to persist over time, for example.
The original text was published here.
