The intervening role of social worldviews in the relationship between the five‐factor model of personality and social attitudes

Abstract

The present research investigates in a student (N ¼ 183) and a voter sample (N ¼ 276) whether the relationships between the Five-Factor Model (FFM) personality dimensions and social attitudes (i.e. Right-Wing Authoritarianism [RWA] and Social Dominance Orientation [SDO]) are mediated by social worldviews (i.e. dangerous and jungle worldviews). Two important results were obtained. First, the perception of the world as inherently dangerous and chaotic partially mediated the relationships of the personality dimensions Openness and Neuroticism and the social attitude RWA. Second, the jungle worldview completely mediated the relationships between Agreeableness and SDO, but considerable item overlap between the jungle worldview and SDO was also noted. It was further revealed that acquiescence response set and item overlap had an impact on social worldviews and attitudes, but that their relationships were hardly affected by these biases. The discussion focuses on the status of social worldviews to explain social attitudes.

Predicting Right-Wing Authoritarianism via Personality and Dangerous World Beliefs: Direct, Indirect, and Interactive Effects

“…If our data were comparable with those found by Van Hiel, Cornelis, and Roets (2007) and by Sibley and Duckitt (2009), Openness should negatively influence RWA (HP1.1), Conscientiousness should positively influence it (HP1.2), and Neuroticism should negatively influence RWA (HP1.3).…”

Five-Factor Model personality dimensions and right-wing attitudes: Psychological bases of punitive attitudes?

“…There is firm evidence for the relationships between the broad bandwidth dimensions of Openness and Conscientiousness and RWA, and of Openness and Agreeableness with SDO (Sibley & Duckitt, 2008). In integrative models including broadband personality and social attitudes to explain other target variables like racism (see, for example, Ekehammar , Akrami, Gylje & Zakrisson, 2004;Van Hiel, Cornelis & Roets, 2007), broadband personality has been typically considered to be a strong basis of social attitudes, which were conceptualized as mediator variables. Zaleski et al (1995) previously found evidence that personality traits predispose social attitudes to a certain extent.…”

Diversity and Out-Group Attitudes in the Netherlands: The Role of Authoritarianism and Social Threat in the Neighbourhood

“…The seminal work in this domain was advanced in the 1950s with the introduction of 'The Authoritarian Personality' (Adorno et al 1950). Although originally proposed as a fixed personality trait, recent accounts usually describe authoritarianism as a social-ideological attitude that might show some changeability, although it is partially driven by core personality traits (e.g., low Openness, Duckitt 2001;Cohrs, Kämpfe-Hargrave, and Riemann 2012;Sibley and Duckitt 2008;Van Hiel, Cornelis, and Roets 2007).…”