The Personality of the Politically Ambitious

Dynes, Adam M.; Hassell, Hans J. G.; Miles, Matthew R.

doi:10.1007/s11109-018-9452-x

Cited by 41 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Consistent with previous research, we find that women generally express less interest than men in running for office and that personality predicts ambition (Dietrich et al 2012; Dynes, Hassell, and Miles 2019). What is interesting, however, is that the slopes of these lines for men and women are approximately parallel.…”

Section: Methods and Resultssupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Moreover, we also have strong reasons to believe that women focus on different components of the electoral environment when considering a run for office (Carroll and Sanbonmatsu 2013; Dittmar 2015b; Kanthak and Woon 2015), which might also result in differences in personality traits. Personality traits correlate with the comfort individuals experience while participating in different contexts—and, in particular, their interest in running for political office (Dietrich et al 2012; Dynes, Hassell, and Miles 2019). These traits consistently emerge as dominant features of individual personality (McCrae and Costa 2008).…”

Section: Candidate Emergence and Selection Into Officementioning

confidence: 99%

“…2.Others have already made the case that psychological factors interact with the political environment to shape nascent and progressive ambition (Dietrich et al 2012; Dynes, Hassell, and Miles 2019; Fox and Lawless 2011). Our contribution is analyzing differences between the personality profiles of men and women who are (1) in the general population, (2) interested in running for political office, and (3) already elected officials.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Personality and Gendered Selection Processes in the Political Pipeline

Dynes

Hassell²,

Miles

et al. 2019

Pol & Gen

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Most research on the causes of women's underrepresentation examines one of two stages of the political pipeline: the development of nascent political ambition or specific aspects of the campaign and election process. In this article, we make a different kind of contribution. We build on the growing literature on gender, psychology, and representation to provide an analysis of what kinds of men and women make it through the political pipeline at each stage. This allows us to draw some conclusions about the ways in which the overall process is similar and different for women and men. Using surveys of the general U.S. population (N = 1,939) and elected municipal officials such as mayors and city councilors (N = 2,354) that measure the distribution of Big Five personality traits, we find that roughly the same types of men and women have nascent political ambition; there is just an intercept shift for sex. In contrast, male and female elected officials have different personality profiles. These differences do not reflect underlying distributions in the general population or the population of political aspirants. In short, our data suggest that socialization into political ambition is similar for men and women, but campaign and election processes are not.

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Section: Methods and Resultssupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Candidate Emergence and Selection Into Officementioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Personality and Gendered Selection Processes in the Political Pipeline

Dynes

Hassell²,

Miles

et al. 2019

Pol & Gen

Self Cite

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“…Although this is significantly lower, it is still a sizable portion of these officials. In addition, about 13% report a strong likelihood of running for higher office (Dynes et al, 2019). As I show in Section D of the Supplemental Appendix, the local officials examined in this article express similar levels of ambition as state legislators (Maestas, 2003) for their current office or higher office.…”

Section: Survey Of Elected Municipal Officialsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Which Citizens Do Elected Officials Target With Distributive Spending? A Survey Experiment on U.S. Municipal Officials

Dynes

2020

American Politics Research

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Research is mixed as to whether politicians target swing voters or core supporters with distributive spending and whether citizens’ turnout affects this strategy. I use a novel data set and research design to examine this—a survey experiment on elected municipal officials. Respondents indicated which of two neighborhoods to target with a local project. I find that local officials, on average, target swing neighborhoods over core ones because they believe that swing voters are more likely than core voters to electorally punish politicians for targeting other groups. Yet, a large proportion still target core voters but not for reasons consistent with extant theory. Officials generally target high turnout neighborhoods over low turnout ones but under certain conditions are also willing to target lower turnout citizens. These findings point to the need for ongoing work to identify the conditions under which officials will target core or swing voters.

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“…Extraverts have numerous friendships, enterprising vocational interests, and activities and have high interest in politics (McCrae & Costa, 2008). They also have a strong sense of political efficacy (Mondak & Halperin, 2008) and are more likely to be interested in running for elected office (Dynes, Hassell, & Miles, 2018). Emotionally stable individuals are less likely to view ordinary situations as threatening and are less likely to have long-term negative reactions to everyday experiences.…”

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confidence: 99%

Personality and Genetic Associations With Military Service

Miles

Haider‐Markel

2018

Armed Forces & Society

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Existing literature connects military service to regional characteristics and family traditions, creating real distinctions between those who serve and those who do not. We engage this discussion by examining military service as a function of personality. In the second portion, we examine military service as predisposed by genetics. Our findings indicate there is a significant heritability component of serving in the military. We find a significant genetic correlation between personality traits associated with progressive political ambition and military service, suggesting that military service represents a different form of political participation to which individuals are genetically predisposed. We discuss the long-term implications of our findings for policy makers and recruiters.

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The Personality of the Politically Ambitious

Cited by 41 publications

References 57 publications

Personality and Gendered Selection Processes in the Political Pipeline

Personality and Gendered Selection Processes in the Political Pipeline

Which Citizens Do Elected Officials Target With Distributive Spending? A Survey Experiment on U.S. Municipal Officials

Personality and Genetic Associations With Military Service

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