Beliefs about Civic Responsibility in the United States

We examine how Americans define civic responsibility and how these beliefs vary across groups using a mixed-methods design. Study 1 (N = 199) used open-ended prompts to identify civic responsibilities in participants’ ownwords, revealing a broad set of obligations beyond voting and obeying the law. Study 2 (N = 5,000), a nationallyrepresentative survey, assessed endorsement of these responsibilities. Americans strongly agree on core legal andconstitutional duties, while partisan and generational differences concentrate in symbolic responsibilities (e.g., pat-riotism) and justice-oriented responsibilities (e.g., protesting unfairness). Differences by gender and education arelimited. Overall, the results show substantial shared agreement alongside targeted areas of civic disagreement in theUnited States.