Personality, Political Attitudes and Participation in Protests: The Direct and Mediated Effects of Psychological Factors on Political Activism

Abstract

Studies combining psychology and political science have shown that personality traits such as extroversion and openness to experiences are conditioning factors of political activism. However, the mechanisms through which this effect occurs are still poorly understood. Aiming to advance this topic, this article presents the results of an investigation that looked to analyse the mediated effects of personality traits in the Brazilian context, taking as mediating conditioning factors various attitudes and subjective dispositions commonly found in the literature, such as interest in politics and subjective political efficacy. Using the Latin American Public Opinion Project data, the hypothesis was tested that personality influences behaviour, since it favours the development of a number of attitudes that function as basic factors conditioning civic engagement. The results indicate the significant mediated effects of extroversion and openness to experience, especially with regard to political knowledge. This relative disinterest can be partially explained by the difficulty involved in defining what personality is and by the absence of a basic taxonomy that could be used in empirical studies for the purpose of generating reliable data .Nonetheless, this scenario has altered significantly over the last decade and such obstacles have begun to erode with the development of instruments capable of capturing these psychological structures in a sufficiently succinct form to be included in conventional questionnaires. The immediate effect of these advances has been the recent publications of a number of studies venturing into the terrain of relations between participatory political behaviour and personality (DENNY and DOYLE,

The Personalities of Presidents as Independent Variables

“…Meanwhile, works centered on the “personal” presidency has continued to flourish in parallel, but in little connection with students of the “institutional” presidency and personality psychology. A similar divide has continued in Latin American scholarship despite works on political elites (Hart, 1977; Stevens, Bishin, & Barr, 2006) and on mass behavior (Ribeiro & Borba, 2016) that have integrated insights from personality psychology.…”

Ekstravert, Keterbukaan, dan Aktivisme Digital Prokes Di Instagram

“…Dimensi terakhir, yaitu openness to new experiences atau terbuka dengan hal-hal baru, mereka cenderung cerdas, imajinatif, inovatif, dan memiliki pikiran yang terbuka. Selain itu, banyak penelitian yang menunjukkan bahwa orang dengan kepribadian ini banyak berpartisipasi dalam kegiatan aktivisme (Ribeiro & Borba, 2016).…”

“…Beberapa penelitian pernah membahas hubungan dimensi-dimensi pada personality traits dengan aktivisme digital (Omoto et al, 2010;Ribeiro & Borba, 2016;Saleh et al, 2011.). Pada aktivisme digital politik, dimensi openness to new experiences dan extraversion memiliki hubungan positif partisipasi individu (Ribeiro & Borba, 2016;Saleh, Kahhal, & Seif, 2011). Seseorang dengan kepribadian openness to new experiences cenderung menyukai perbedaan, mencari hal-hal terbaru dan menyukai perubahan.…”

Extraversion and External Efficacy: The Moderating Role of Corruption

“…These studies utilize nationally representative data from Germany (Schoen & Steinbrecher, 2013) and Denmark (Rasmussen & Nørgaard, 2018), as well as subnational and convenience samples of U.S. residents (Anderson, 2010; Rasmussen & Nørgaard, 2018). Other scholars have combined measures of internal and external efficacy and observed positive and significant results in Italy (Vecchione & Caprara, 2009) and negative and insignificant results in Brazil (Ribeiro & Borba, 2016).…”