Since 1991, public acceptance of gays and lesbians has grown dramatically. We use two approaches to examine changing attitudes in U.S. survey data. First, we conduct cohort analyses showing that both generational replacement and period effects are having impacts. Since 1991, older, less accepting generations of Americans have been dying and being replaced by younger, more tolerant Americans, and all age groups have been becoming more tolerant. Second, we pool cross-sectional, time series survey data to show that there has been a broad, dramatic increase in virtually every group's acceptance of gays and lesbians over time.

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Cultural theory maintains that four worldviews-egalitarianism, individualism, hierarchicalism, and fatalism-can be used to describe people and societies. We examine survey measures of two of those worldviews-egalitarianism and individualism-to understand their relationship with belief systems. Contrary to what one might expect based on the cultural theory literature, we find that people with low levels of political knowledge seem not to have coherent worldviews regarding these issues. In contrast, people with high levels of political knowledge respond to egalitarianism and individualism questions as if they were opposite ends of a single, liberal-conservative continuum, rather than two of four distinct worldviews. We conclude that cultural theory researchers should take account of the influence of political knowledge whenever they investigate worldviews.

Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain why women remain underrepresented in Congress. One of those hypotheses is that some voters have blatant prejudices against women politicians, while others hold stereotypes about men and women politicians that favor men. In contrast, others claim that women candidates for Congress actually have an advantage in running for office because voters prefer women politicians. We test those hypotheses using pooled 1988, 1990, and 1992 National Election Studies data and the pooled 1988-1992 Senate Election Study and building on Krasno's (1994) model of voter choice in House and Senate elections. We find evidence that some voters prefer women candidates in House races, but not in Senate races. The advantage for women candidates in races with a challenger and incumbent is slight and can be attributed to the strong support of well-educated women voters. An advantage for women candidates is more pronounced in open-seat contests. In open-seat races, women voters, regardless of their education levels, more strongly support women candidates. Overall, candidate sex was not significant to male voters.Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain why women remain underrepresented in Congress. One of those hypotheses is that voters are biased against women candidates. According to this hypothesis, some voters have blatant prejudices against women politicians, while others hold stereotypes about men and women politicians that favor men. In contrast, others claimthat women candidates for Congress actually have an advantage in running for office because voters prefer women politicians. This article evaluates these claims by examining the performance of men and women candidates running for the House and Senate. Ultimately, we conclude that there is no difference in the performance of men and women candidates in U.