Age Differences in Conservatism: Evidence on the Mediating Effects of Personality and Cognitive Style

Cornelis, Ilse; Hiel, Alain Van; Roets, Arne; Kossowska, Małgorzata

doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2008.00538.x

Cited by 147 publications

(136 citation statements)

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“…Consistent with previous research observing age related changes in authoritarianism, conscientiousness, neuroticism and agreeableness (Cornelis, Van Hiel, Roets, & Kossowska, 2009;Soto et al, 2011), we found clear differences, with younger voters on both sides of the debate selfreporting lower levels of conscientiousness and authoritarianism, and higher levels of neuroticism than older participants intending to vote the same way. The picture for openness is a little more nuanced with extant research finding that openness tends to increase through adolescence, level off during adulthood, and decrease in old age (Roberts, Walton, & Viechtbauer, 2006).…”

Section: Personality and Cognition In The Eu Referendum 40supporting

confidence: 80%

“…This nuance of age is an important area to better understand. It may be partially explained by research which has noted that decreasing levels of openness, together with an increasing 'Need for Closure' (NFC), in old aged voters appears to be associated with an age related rise in conservatism (Cornelis et al, 2009;Roberts et al, 2006;Webster & Kruglanski, 1994).…”

Section: Personality and Cognition In The Eu Referendum 40mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Role of Personality, Authoritarianism and Cognition in the United Kingdom’s 2016 Referendum on European Union Membership

Sumner¹,

Scofield²,

Buchanan³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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The results of the United Kingdom's 2016 referendum on European Union (EU) membership have highlighted deep societal divides. In six studies, we examined the role of personality traits, cognition and cognitive biases in relation to referendum voters' choices. A total of 11,225 participants completed questionnaires and controlled experiments, which assessed differences in personality traits, levels of authoritarianism, numeracy, thinking styles, and susceptibility to cognitive biases including ideologically motivated numeracy and reasoning, framing, and the Dunning-Kruger effect. Participants expressing an intent to vote to leave the EU reported significantly higher levels of authoritarianism and conscientiousness, and lower levels of openness and neuroticism than voters expressing an intent to vote to remain in the EU. When compared with Remain voters, Leave voters displayed significantly lower levels of numeracy and appeared more reliant on impulsive System 1 thinking. In the experimental studies, voters on both sides were found to be susceptible to the cognitive biases tested, but often, unexpectedly, to different degrees. These results raise important questions regarding the use and framing of numerical and non-numerical data for public consumption.Keywords: Authoritarianism, Brexit, Cognition, Numeracy, Personality. PERSONALITY AND COGNITION IN THE EU REFERENDUM 3The Role of Personality, Authoritarianism, and Cognition in the United Kingdom's 2016 Referendum on European Union MembershipThe United Kingdom's 2016 referendum on European Union (EU) membership was one of the most divisive democratic choices presented to the UK electorate in a generation, with polls running almost neck-and-neck between February 2016 and June 2016 (NatCen Social Research, 2016) and resulting in a narrow majority of 51.9% in favor of leaving the EU. The referendum campaign and the months following the result have highlighted deep societal, regional, and generational divides over opinions on integration with and membership of the EU, which are unsurprising as the British have had highly conflicting opinions since the onset of the project (Inglehart, 1970). In seeking to better understand these divisions, scholars and political commentators have focused largely on age, education and "the left behind" (Dorling, 2016;Goodwin & Heath, 2016). However, the role of differing personalities, cognitive abilities and cognitive biases have been largely overlooked throughout pre-and post-referendum analysis.There is a long history of research in exploring links between personality and political orientation, attitudes, and beliefs. Of this research, scholars have consistently identified relationships between political orientation and personality (Carney, Jost, Gosling, & Potter, 2008;Sibley, Osborne, & Duckitt, 2012) and authoritarianism (Altemeyer, 1981;Hetherington & Weiler, 2009; John T. Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, & Sulloway, 2003). It is only in relatively recent years that we have witnessed the emergence of studies investigating the ...

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Section: Personality and Cognition In The Eu Referendum 40supporting

confidence: 80%

Section: Personality and Cognition In The Eu Referendum 40mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Personality, Authoritarianism and Cognition in the United Kingdom’s 2016 Referendum on European Union Membership

Sumner¹,

Scofield²,

Buchanan³

et al. 2018

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A substantial literature has found a relationship between age and political ideology (Cornelis et al 2009;Glenn 1974;Krosnick and Alwin 1989;Ray 1985). Most studies have found that as people age they become more conservative and less susceptible to attitude change (Jennings and Niemi 1978;Krosnick and Alwin 1989).…”

Section: Example Applications Of the Ideology Measure Example 1: Age mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, less is known about how that relationship varies across individual characteristics. Recent studies have begun to investigate how personality plays a role in mediating the relationship between age and conservatism (Cornelis et al 2009). Here we investigate how the relationship between age and ideology varies by characteristics such as gender, marital status, and educational attainment.…”

Section: Example Applications Of the Ideology Measure Example 1: Age mentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying Social Media’s Political Space: Estimating Ideology from Publicly Revealed Preferences on Facebook

2015

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M any theories in political science rely on ideology at their core, whether they are explanations for individual behavior and preferences, governmental relations, or links between them. However, ideology has proven difficult to explicate and measure, in large part because it is impossible to directly observe: we can only examine indicators such as responses to survey questions, political donations, votes, and judicial decisions. One problem with this patchwork of indicator measures is the difficulty of studying ideology across domains. Although we have established reliable techniques for measuring ideology among individuals and legislators, such as survey measures and roll-call vote analysis, methods for jointly estimating the ideologies of ordinary citizens and elite actors have only recently been developed.To understand the relationship between elite ideology and beliefs of ordinary citizens, we need measures of ideology that allow us to place ordinary citizens and elites in the same ideological space. For example, a longstanding debate in political science concerns whether the American public has become more ideologically polarized in the last 40 years (e.g., Abramowitz and Saunders 2008;Fiorina, Abrams, and Pope 2006). If so, does mass polarization drive elite polarization, or vice versa? To test these theories, we need joint ideology measures that put elite actors and ordinary citizens on the same scale.

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“…In fact, "openness to experience," a construct conceptually related to novelty-seeking, is the personality trait most commonly linked to political orientations (Cornelis et al 2009;Jost et al 2003;McCrae 1996;Mondak and Halperin 2008) and has been found to be negatively related to political conservatism generally (Van Hiel et al 2000) and socio-cultural conservatism specifically (McCrae 1996;Peterson, Smirles and Wentworth 1997;Trapnell 1994;Van Hiel, Kossowska and Mervielde 2000). The relationship between openness to experience and ideology holds when ideology is measured either as support for ideological political parties (Caprara, Barbaranelli & Zimbardo, 1999;Van Hiel et al, 2000) or as ideological self-placement (Carney, Jost, Gosling, Niederhoffer, & Potter, in press;Van Hiel et al, 2000).…”

Section: Novelty-seeking Friends and Liberalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Friendships Moderate an Association Between a Dopamine Gene Variant and Political Ideology

et al. 2008

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Scholars in many fields have long noted the importance of social context in the development of political ideology. Recent work suggests that political ideology also has a heritable component, but no specific gene variant or combination of variants associated with political ideology have so far been identified. Here, we hypothesize that individuals with a genetic predisposition toward seeking out new experiences will tend to be more liberal, but only if they are embedded in a social context that provides them with multiple points of view. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we test this hypothesis by investigating an association between self-reported political ideology and the 7R variant of the dopamine receptor D4 gene (DRD4), which has previously been associated with novelty seeking. Among those with DRD4-7R, we find that the number of friendships a person has in adolescence is significantly associated with liberal political ideology. Among those without the gene variant, there is no association. This is the first study to elaborate a specific gene-environment interaction that contributes to ideological self-identification, and it highlights the importance of incorporating both nature and nurture into the study of political preferences.In his influential collection of essays, Ideology and Utopia, Karl Mannheim (1936) sought to explain the meaning and origin of political ideology. As a founder of the "sociology of knowledge" school of thought, he broadened a view, first championed by Marx, that individual political attitudes are derived from groups and their relationships to the whole of society. While Marx focused particularly on class relations, Mannheim observed that political ideology is the product of the total social context of each individual. To understand a person's political ideology, we need only examine his or her political environment.Mannheim's work would influence several generations of scholars (e.g., Huntington 1957;Bell 1959;Rapoport 1974;North 1978;Lipset 1983;Jackman and Muha 1984;Haas 1992). While many of these scholars disagreed with parts of Mannheim's argument, they all agreed with the premise: that the social and institutional environment is paramount for explaining a person's political attitudes and beliefs. When individuals say they are "liberal" or "conservative," they are referring to their ideas about the issues of the day that are specific to a place and a moment in history. Remove them to another context and their ideology will change.This literature contrasts with a growing body of work that suggests ideology is not purely a product of the social environment or historical moment. Increasingly, it is becoming Contact author James Fowler, jhfowler@ucsd.edu. Most recent version available at http://jhfowler.ucsd.edu. NIH Public AccessAuthor Manuscript J Polit. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2012 January 24. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript apparent that political ideology also has a "core" eleme...

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Age Differences in Conservatism: Evidence on the Mediating Effects of Personality and Cognitive Style

Cited by 147 publications

References 85 publications

The Role of Personality, Authoritarianism and Cognition in the United Kingdom’s 2016 Referendum on European Union Membership

The Role of Personality, Authoritarianism and Cognition in the United Kingdom’s 2016 Referendum on European Union Membership

Quantifying Social Media’s Political Space: Estimating Ideology from Publicly Revealed Preferences on Facebook

Friendships Moderate an Association Between a Dopamine Gene Variant and Political Ideology

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