The idea that politics needs two axes, not one, is decades old. It runs from a 1954 psychology book through a 1970s diamond-shaped chart to the many web quizzes of the internet era — and no single person or company owns it.
1954: Eysenck's Two Factors
Psychologist Hans Eysenck proposed a two-factor model of political ideology in his book The Psychology of Politics.
He paired the familiar economic Left-Right dimension with a second factor he called "tough-minded versus tender-minded" — an early, differently-worded version of today's social/authority axis.
1971: The Nolan Chart
Political activist David Nolan proposed plotting economic freedom against personal freedom on two perpendicular axes, producing a diamond shape.
Four corners: libertarian, conservative, liberal, and statist — a direct ancestor of the quadrant layout used today.
Later Academic Refinements
Subsequent political psychology research kept finding the same basic split, even while renaming the axes and refining the theory:
- Economic conservatism vs. economic liberalism
- Social/cultural conservatism vs. social/cultural liberalism
- Authoritarian vs. libertarian orientations toward state authority
Feldman & Johnston (2014) and Duckitt & Sibley (2009) both treat the two dimensions as psychologically distinct, not two names for the same underlying trait.
2000s: The Web Quiz Era
Two-axis models spread widely online once quiz platforms made a shareable, visual result easy to produce — a single dot placed on a 2D grid.
Dozens of independent instruments have used this format since, each writing its own statements and drawing its own quadrant boundaries. The format is common; no version of it is the canonical one.
Where the Ideology Compass Fits
The Ideology Compass uses this same general two-axis structure — an economic axis crossed with a social axis — that this entire lineage shares.
Every one of its 36 statements was freshly written for JobCannon, not adapted from Eysenck, Nolan, or any other named instrument. See how it compares to other quizzes using the same framework.