The role of personality traits in people's attitudes toward EU membership in EU membership-aspiring countries: The case of Kosovo

Session

Psychology

Description

The consolidation of the Big Five personality model during the 1990s unleashed enormous multidisciplinary efforts to apply it as a set of explanatory variables to a wide range of human behavior, including consumer, health, religious, social and political behavior. However, with a single exception – a case study of the role of Big Five personality traits in Dutch people’s attitudes toward their countries membership in the EU – the Big Five personality model has not been applied in explaining attitudes toward the EU, and explanatory models of people’s support for the EU and EU-related issues and policies continue to rely on situational variables. We mount an effort to apply personality traits from the Big Five model to explain Kosovo citizens’ support of Kosovo’s membership in the EU and other EU related issues. We investigate the role of personality traits on people’s attitudes toward three issues that the Western Balkans’ publics meaningfully relate to the EU, namely support for EU membership, attitudes toward EU membership conditionality, and political trust in the EU politicians, institutions and the judiciary. We analyze two probabilistic samples of public opinion survey data that we collected in winter 2018-2019 in Albania and Kosovo through the cellphone random digit dialing (RDD) technique. Our efforts carry the double benefit of both testing the Big Five model in an underrepresented population, and opening an opportunity to observe any possible differences between the role of personality toward EU membership in countries that are already EU member (such as the Netherland) and Kosovo, a country that aspires to, but is still far from any tangible chances of joining the Union in the near future. Our findings would help to contribute both to the EU literature and the political behavior literature by reverberating the need to include personality trait variables in explanatory models of attitudes toward the EU and EU related issues and policies.

Keywords:

personality traits, attitudes toward EU, Big Five personality model

Proceedings Editor

Edmond Hajrizi

ISBN

978-9951-550-50-5

Location

Lipjan, Kosovo

Start Date

29-10-2022 12:00 AM

End Date

30-10-2022 12:00 AM

DOI

10.33107/ubt-ic.2022.26

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The role of personality traits in people's attitudes toward EU membership in EU membership-aspiring countries: The case of Kosovo

Lipjan, Kosovo

The consolidation of the Big Five personality model during the 1990s unleashed enormous multidisciplinary efforts to apply it as a set of explanatory variables to a wide range of human behavior, including consumer, health, religious, social and political behavior. However, with a single exception – a case study of the role of Big Five personality traits in Dutch people’s attitudes toward their countries membership in the EU – the Big Five personality model has not been applied in explaining attitudes toward the EU, and explanatory models of people’s support for the EU and EU-related issues and policies continue to rely on situational variables. We mount an effort to apply personality traits from the Big Five model to explain Kosovo citizens’ support of Kosovo’s membership in the EU and other EU related issues. We investigate the role of personality traits on people’s attitudes toward three issues that the Western Balkans’ publics meaningfully relate to the EU, namely support for EU membership, attitudes toward EU membership conditionality, and political trust in the EU politicians, institutions and the judiciary. We analyze two probabilistic samples of public opinion survey data that we collected in winter 2018-2019 in Albania and Kosovo through the cellphone random digit dialing (RDD) technique. Our efforts carry the double benefit of both testing the Big Five model in an underrepresented population, and opening an opportunity to observe any possible differences between the role of personality toward EU membership in countries that are already EU member (such as the Netherland) and Kosovo, a country that aspires to, but is still far from any tangible chances of joining the Union in the near future. Our findings would help to contribute both to the EU literature and the political behavior literature by reverberating the need to include personality trait variables in explanatory models of attitudes toward the EU and EU related issues and policies.