Personality and Political Attitudes: Relationships across Issue Domains and Political Contexts

TLDR

Prior work has examined direct links between personality traits and ideological self‑placement, but theory suggests these links should vary by issue domain and contextual factors. This study develops a theoretical framework to test such differential effects. Using a large national survey of registered voters, the authors analyze how Big Five traits predict political attitudes across issue domains and racial groups. Results confirm earlier findings, show Big Five traits influence economic and social attitudes differently, have predictive power comparable to education or income, and that trait–ideology relationships differ markedly between white and black respondents.

Abstract

Previous research on personality traits and political attitudes has largely focused on the direct relationships between traits and ideological self-placement. There are theoretical reasons, however, to suspect that the relationships between personality traits and political attitudes (1) vary across issue domains and (2) depend on contextual factors that affect the meaning of political stimuli. In this study, we provide an explicit theoretical framework for formulating hypotheses about these differential effects. We then leverage the power of an unusually large national survey of registered voters to examine how the relationships between Big Five personality traits and political attitudes differ across issue domains and social contexts (as defined by racial groups). We confirm some important previous findings regarding personality and political ideology, find clear evidence that Big Five traits affect economic and social attitudes differently, show that the effect of Big Five traits is often as large as that of education or income in predicting ideology, and demonstrate that the relationships between Big Five traits and ideology vary substantially between white and black respondents.