I do believe in the existence of "contrarians." People who don't know what they think until they find out what most people think, just so they can be against it.
I tend to have contrarian instincts. If I see a large majority of people claiming something is "thus". I will ask myself, "Is it really "thus", or should I look for an alternate explanation?"
I tend to be devil's advocate a lot.
The interesting question is—if they had miraculously switched jobs would they have switched political opinions?
I believe so. Not only would the experiences steer them differently, the people they are surrounded with would also steer them differently.
I was always a conservative but I went to a well known leftist prep school and college.
I did have a support group of like minded peers in those places, however.
It was our “dark night of the soul” as we were badly outnumbered—a lot of stress for politically active young people.
By surviving it I became even a stronger conservative—with zero tolerance for leftist craziness and propaganda.
I think what shaped my political views were not politics itself but an attitude towards the outside world. I never believed what people said. I only believed what I confirm with my own real world experience. That is just my temperament.
Conservatives tended to tell the truth. Liberals tended to lie and I would catch them lying—and so that was that.