Big Five Politics How Personality Shapes Politics

The Big Five Personality Domains

• Openness to Experience / Closedness • Conscientiousness / Unconscientiousness • Extraversion / Introversion • Agreeableness / Disagreeableness • Neuroticism / Emotional Stability

Political Ideology

• High Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) is strongly associated with low Openness and high Conscientiousness. • High Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) is strongly associated with low Agreeableness and to a lesser extent low Openness • Low Openness and high Conscientiousness, separately, both produce a conservative temperament. Paired together, they are strongly associated with social conservatism. • Low Agreeableness, completely independent of the other two, is strongly associated with economic conservatism. • High Openness is strongly associated with both economic and social liberalism, but also with weaker partisan attachment. • Anecdotally, there is reason to suspect that high Openness paired with high Conscientiousness may be linked to liberal activism. • Extraversion and Neuroticism have no discernable impact on ideology.

Political Information

• In general, Openness and Extraversion are politicizing influences: they produce greater levels of political attentiveness, knowledge, discussion, and opinionation. Conscientiousness and Agreeableness are modestly de-politicizing, having the opposite effects. • Highly Conscientious people have consistently average levels of political knowledge, regardless of how Open they are, and tend to avoid political discussion. For those average or low in Conscientiousness, the more Open they are, the greater their level of political knowledge. • Extraverts and Introverts have the same overall levels of political knowledge, but Extraverts are more likely to tune in to political news, express opinions, and engage in political discussion than Introverts. • Highly Agreeable Introverts resist exposure to different points of view, even when they have large social networks. Extraversion and Disagreeableness increase the probability of exposure to differing points of view in one’s social network.

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Big Five Politics How Personality Shapes Politics

Political Participation

• In general, Openness and Extraversion are politicizing influences: they increase the likelihood a person will contact an elected leader and engage in other forms of political activism. Conscientiousness (with one exception) and Neuroticism decrease that likelihood. • Extraverts are more likely to engage in participatory actions that have a social component, whereas Open people are more inclined toward solitary, individualistic actions. • Conscientious people dramatically increase participation when their sense of political efficacy is high: when they believe their efforts matter and public officials are being highly responsive. • Extraverts and Closed people are very sensitive to campaign tone. If the campaign goes negative, they will avoid participating and voting.

Political Leaders

• The findings on ideology generally held up in surveys of political leaders. • Leaders high in Extraversion and low in Neuroticism show greater interest in running for high office. • Leaders high in Openness derive the greatest satisfaction from participating in hearings and working on legislation. • Leaders high in Neuroticism show a greater tendency to vote the wrong way on procedural votes (votes prior to final passage of a bill).

Demographics

• A few demographic traits might correlate with OCEAN personality domains. Effects are weak and often inconsistent across studies. • Women report higher levels of Conscientiousness, Extraversion, and Agreeableness than men. • African Americans report higher levels of Openness and Conscientiousness and lower levels of Neuroticism compared to whites. • Openness and Neuroticism both decrease slightly as people get older. • Openness increases slightly as education level increases.

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