A Framework for the Study of Personality and Political Behaviour

Abstract

Variance in how citizens interact with the political world constitutes one of many classes of individual difference. Understanding the antecedents of this variance is the central objective for students of political behaviour, and researchers draw on numerous factors in addressing this task. Unfortunately, one potentially vital factor, personality, has received only sporadic attention in recent decades. Neglect of personality was understandable for many years, as psychological research on personality failed to produce concise taxonomies applicable to the study of politics. As the present analysis demonstrates, however, this situation has changed. Research on personality has gained new footing with the emergence of a series of five-factor models, and these frameworks hold great potential for the study of political behaviour. This thesis is advanced in a two-part analysis. First, we outline how and why our understanding of citizen politics may be improved through application of five-factor models of personality. In doing so, we focus on the components of one specific taxonomy, the Big Five lexical model. Secondly, using three datasets, we explore the link between the Big Five personality factors and a wide array of political attitudes and behaviours. Results reveal that all facets of personality captured by the Big Five framework matter for citizen politics, and that personality effects operate on virtually all aspects of political behaviour. These findings demonstrate the insight that can emerge with further application of broad-scale models of personality.

Personality and Political Attitudes: Relationships across Issue Domains and Political Contexts

“…We begin with Conscientiousness, which previous research has found is related to overall conservative ideology (Carney et al 2008;Gosling, Rentfrow, and Swann 2003;Mondak and Halperin 2008;Stenner 2005, ch. 6; but see Hibbing 2007 andMehrabian 1996) and voting for conservative/right-wing candidates (Barbaranelli et al 2007;Caprara, Barbaranelli, and Zimbardo 1999;Caprara et al 2006;Rentfrow et al 2009;Schoen and Schumann 2007).…”

“…8), job satisfaction (Hogan and Holland 2003;Salgado 1997), alcohol and tobacco consumption (Paunonen and Ashton 2001), and physical and mental health (Goodwin and Friedman 2006). Although the Big Five personality traits have only recently begun to 2 Cognitive ability is the only psychological trait that is more stable through the life cycle than the Big Five (Caspi, Roberts, and Shiner 2005, 466-67). receive attention in political science, existing evidence suggests that they are significant predictors of political outcomes such as ideology and turnout (Gerber et al 2010b;Mondak and Halperin 2008). Indeed, the size of the effects of these traits rivals those of canonical predictors of political behavior that have been the subject of countless studies-such as education and income (Gerber et al 2010b).…”

Trusting the State, Trusting Each Other? The Effect of Institutional Trust on Social Trust

“…Because personality traits have been shown to be partially innate and are generally formed early on in life (Bouchard and McGue 2003;McCrae 1988, 1992), they may likely precede both types of trust. Indeed, recent studies have shown that social trust is influenced by personality, either in terms of the broader traits in the Big Five personality scheme-especially Agreeableness, Openness and Neuroticism Mondak and Halperin 2008)-or more specific facets such as optimism and a sense of control (Couch and Jones 1997;Uslaner 2002; see also Hirashi et al 2008;Oskarsson et al 2012). In fact, social trust has in itself been suggested to be a facet under the trait Agreeableness in the Big Five framework (cf.…”

The Political Economy of Risk and Ideology

“…Our political-economic argument linking risk aversion and ideology sits alongside a larger literature that posits more and more possible links between basic individual characteristics, such as personality traits, and political ideology and behavior (see, e.g., Mondak and Halperin 2008;Vecchione and Caprara 2009;Gerber et al 2010;Mondak et al 2010;Morton, Tyran, and Wengstrom 2011). With respect to this literature, our main contribution is to develop a clear theoretical framework linking basic individual characteristics-in this case, aversion to risk-to political ideology.…”