What I Like About You: Legislator Personality and Legislator Approval

Klingler, Jonathan D.; Hollibaugh, Gary E.; Ramey, Adam

doi:10.1007/s11109-018-9460-x

Cited by 19 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…The mechanism is likely to have an evolutionary origin, because also observed in primates (Massen & Koski, 2014). In politics, some work shows congruent profiles between party leaders and their supporters (Caprara et al, 2003), and more generally, the fact that voters tend to select candidates with personalities that ressemble their own (Caprara & Zimbardo, 2004;Caprara et al, 2007b; but see Klingler et al, 2018). Recent research by Fortunato et al (2018) suggest that similar mechanisms were also at play during the 2016 US presidential primaries.…”

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confidence: 93%

The electoral success of angels and demons: Big Five, Dark Triad, and performance at the ballot box

Nai

2019

J. Soc. Polit. Psych.

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The article tests whether the personality of candidates – in terms of their Big Five (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness) and Dark triad (narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism) – is associated with their electoral results. Via a novel dataset based on expert ratings for 122 candidates having competed in 55 recent national elections worldwide, and controlling for several covariates, results show that a better performance at the ballot box is associated with high conscientiousness, openness to experience and psychopathy. Extraversion is negatively associated with better results. Analyses also reveal profile effects; extraversion is linked to worse results especially for incumbents and younger candidates, conscientiousness and narcissism are associated with better results especially for candidates on the right-hand side of the ideological spectrum, and openness is associated with better results for male candidates.

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confidence: 93%

The electoral success of angels and demons: Big Five, Dark Triad, and performance at the ballot box

Nai

2019

J. Soc. Polit. Psych.

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“…On the one hand, increasing evidence exists that voters with "darker" personality profiles tend to like darker politics -be it in terms of exposure to more negative and uncivil campaigns (Weinschenk and Panagopoulos, 2014;Nai and Maier, 2020a), or in terms of support for more confrontational and aggressive candidates (e.g., Bakker et al, 2016). On the other hand, this mechanism perfectly overlaps with the general "homophily" (or "congruence") effect -that is, the established notion that voters are often more likely to support candidates with personalities that "match" their own (Caprara et al, 2003;Caprara and Zimbardo, 2004;Caprara et al, 2007; but see; Klingler et al, 2018). As summarized by Caprara and Vecchione (2017), personality "traits represent important elements through which the similarity-attraction principle may operate in politics because they allow voters to organize their impression of politicians, to link politicians' perceived personalities to their own, and ultimately to justify their preferences on the assumption that similarity in traits carries similarity in worldview and values.…”

Section: Direct and Moderated Effects Of Candidate Personalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Personality Goes a Long Way (for Some). An Experimental Investigation Into Candidate Personality Traits, Voters’ Profile, and Perceived Likeability

2021

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The personality traits of political candidates, and the way these are perceived by the public at large, matter for political representation and electoral behavior. Disentangling the effects of partisanship and perceived personality on candidate evaluations is however notoriously a tricky business, as voters tend to evaluate the personality of candidates based on their partisan preferences. In this article we tackle this issue via innovative experimental data. We present what is, to the best of our knowledge, the first study that manipulates the personality traits of a candidate and assesses its subsequent effects. The design, embedded in an online survey distributed to a convenience sample of US respondents (MTurk, N = 1,971), exposed respondents randomly to one of eight different “vignettes” presenting personality cues for a fictive candidate - one vignette for each of the five general traits (Big Five) and the three “nefarious” traits of the Dark Triad. Our results show that 1) the public at large dislikes “dark” politicians, and rate them significantly and substantially lower in likeability; 2) voters that themselves score higher on “dark” personality traits (narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism) tend to like dark candidates, in such a way that the detrimental effect observed in general is completely reversed for them; 3) the effects of candidates’ personality traits are, in some cases, stronger for respondents displaying a weaker partisan attachment.

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“…On this matter, the jury is still out. On the one hand, several studies show that voters tend to prefer candidates with personalities that 'match' their own (Caprara et al 2003;Caprara and Zimbardo 2004;; but see Klingler, Hollibaugh, and Ramey 2018). On the other hand, recent research suggests that specific individual traits drive preferences for specific candidatesfor instance, individuals scoring low on agreeableness tend to prefer populist candidates (e.g.…”

Section: Implications and Further Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Evidence exists that certain personality profiles could be more conducive to electoral successfor instance, Joly, Soroka, and Loewen (2018) find that politicians low in agreeableness tend to be more successful, Scott and Medeiros (2020) highlight the potentially detrimental role of openness, and Nai (2019b) shows that candidates high in conscientiousness and psychopathy tend to attract more votes, whereas extraversion might be detrimental. Beyond this direct effect, some research suggests that voters tend to vote for candidates with personalities that 'match' their own (Caprara et al 2003;Caprara and Zimbardo 2004;; but see Klingler, Hollibaugh, and Ramey 2018), while others suggest that some candidates might seem more appealing for voters with certain personality profile, but not for others; for instance, evidence suggests that conscientiousness is positively associated with support for one of the most important examples of contemporary autocratic tendencies -Vladimir Putin (Greene and Robertson 2017), and that voters scoring low on agreeableness are more likely to support populist parties (Bakker, Rooduijn, and Schumacher 2016). To be sure, much evidence exists that a voter's profile matters greatly for their electoral choices, beyond the personality of political figures; for instance, many studies have shown that conscientiousness is positively associated with conservatism and openness with liberalism (Gerber et al 2010;Hirsh et al 2010), and recent research shows that psychopathy and narcissism are also associated with political conservatism in voters (Jonason 2014).…”

Section: Introduction and Rationalementioning

confidence: 99%

The peculiar personality of strongmen: comparing the Big Five and Dark Triad traits of autocrats and non-autocrats

Nai

Toros

2020

Political Research Exchange

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The personality of political leaders matters for their electoral success and performance once in office. Yet, we still know too little about the personality profiles of leaders worldwide. In this article, we focus on the profile of a particular type of leader, central to contemporary warnings about 'democratic backsliding': strongmen. Who are they? Much has been written about their behaviour and policies, but little attention has been granted to their personality profile. As we argue in this article, looking at their personality is a potentially important new avenue to understand the rise and success of strongmen worldwide. We compare the profile of 157 leaders having competed in 81 elections worldwide between June 2016 and July 2019including 14 leaders with autocratic tendencies (Putin, Trump, Bolsonaro, Erdoğan, Orbán, Duterte, Netanyahu and several others). Using the ratings provided by 1800+ scholars we show that autocrats score significantly lower on agreeableness and emotional stability, and (marginally) higher on extraversion. Autocrats also score significantly higher than nonautocrats on the Dark Triad (narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism), even when compared to right-wing nonautocrats. These results have important implications for the study of democratic deconsolidation, authoritarianism, and the personality of elected officials.

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What I Like About You: Legislator Personality and Legislator Approval

Cited by 19 publications

References 66 publications

The electoral success of angels and demons: Big Five, Dark Triad, and performance at the ballot box

The electoral success of angels and demons: Big Five, Dark Triad, and performance at the ballot box

Personality Goes a Long Way (for Some). An Experimental Investigation Into Candidate Personality Traits, Voters’ Profile, and Perceived Likeability

The peculiar personality of strongmen: comparing the Big Five and Dark Triad traits of autocrats and non-autocrats

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