Born that Way: The Effects of the Big Five Personality Traits in People’s Ideological Affiliation
Session
Psychology
Description
The relationship between personality and ideological affiliation has been intriguing political psychologists for over the last 100 years. Notwithstanding various approaches to the topic and reinvigorated efforts to predict ideological affiliation with personality traits, literature has managed to build consensus neither on their association nor any causality of personality on ideological inclination. There is a growing body of political psychology literature confirming that distinct pattern of personality traits could predict ideological positions. Arguably, predicting individual ideological inclination must account for personality traits because the basis of distinction between liberalism and conservatism “is ultimately not political, sociological or economic, but psychological.” We identify three limitations of the existing literature on the relationship between personality and ideology: the unidimensional linear perception of respondents’ self-reported ideological inclination, while a two-dimensional measurement along economic and social issues would be a more accurate approach; that literature tends to reduce personality only to its core characteristics, personality traits, overlooking surface characteristics such as motives, social attitudes, values, and beliefs that all interact within varied social contexts; most of the research about the relationship between personality and political attitudes, behavior and beliefs relies on data from developed countries. Cross-country research on the association between personality and political ideology has revealed significant prediction differences from country to country. For instance, in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs), people’s Left-Right perception runs more along people’s experiences during communism than along the economic/moral divide typical for Western societies. However, studying the relationship between personality and political ideology in the CEECs becomes important because the idiosyncratic structure of its transitioning societies as well as ideology’s place and role in those societies. We take our research to Kosovo, where politics have always surrounded not the Left-Right division but the Albanian-Serbian ethnic division. In such countries, measuring ideological inclination as responses to topical questions might be a better strategy than the Left-Right self-reporting scale. We use both these measurements. In Kosovo, we inquire the association between individual personality traits and their ideological inclinations measured as the self-reported position in the 11-point left-right scale, an ideological test, and a political compass adjusted according to country’s specific understanding of the topics. We test our hypotheses with public opinion data from a representative survey sample that we collected in winter 2019-2020.
Keywords:
Big Five personality model, ideologic affiliation, societies in transition, Lef-Right division, Kosovo
Proceedings Editor
Edmond Hajrizi
ISBN
978-9951-550-95-6
Location
UBT Kampus, Lipjan
Start Date
28-10-2023 8:00 AM
End Date
29-10-2023 6:00 PM
DOI
10.3107/ubt-ic.2023.29
Recommended Citation
Dara, Frederik; Muca, Markela; and Peshkopia, Ridvan, "Born that Way: The Effects of the Big Five Personality Traits in People’s Ideological Affiliation" (2023). UBT International Conference. 7.
https://knowledgecenter.ubt-uni.net/conference/IC/PSYY/7
Born that Way: The Effects of the Big Five Personality Traits in People’s Ideological Affiliation
UBT Kampus, Lipjan
The relationship between personality and ideological affiliation has been intriguing political psychologists for over the last 100 years. Notwithstanding various approaches to the topic and reinvigorated efforts to predict ideological affiliation with personality traits, literature has managed to build consensus neither on their association nor any causality of personality on ideological inclination. There is a growing body of political psychology literature confirming that distinct pattern of personality traits could predict ideological positions. Arguably, predicting individual ideological inclination must account for personality traits because the basis of distinction between liberalism and conservatism “is ultimately not political, sociological or economic, but psychological.” We identify three limitations of the existing literature on the relationship between personality and ideology: the unidimensional linear perception of respondents’ self-reported ideological inclination, while a two-dimensional measurement along economic and social issues would be a more accurate approach; that literature tends to reduce personality only to its core characteristics, personality traits, overlooking surface characteristics such as motives, social attitudes, values, and beliefs that all interact within varied social contexts; most of the research about the relationship between personality and political attitudes, behavior and beliefs relies on data from developed countries. Cross-country research on the association between personality and political ideology has revealed significant prediction differences from country to country. For instance, in Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs), people’s Left-Right perception runs more along people’s experiences during communism than along the economic/moral divide typical for Western societies. However, studying the relationship between personality and political ideology in the CEECs becomes important because the idiosyncratic structure of its transitioning societies as well as ideology’s place and role in those societies. We take our research to Kosovo, where politics have always surrounded not the Left-Right division but the Albanian-Serbian ethnic division. In such countries, measuring ideological inclination as responses to topical questions might be a better strategy than the Left-Right self-reporting scale. We use both these measurements. In Kosovo, we inquire the association between individual personality traits and their ideological inclinations measured as the self-reported position in the 11-point left-right scale, an ideological test, and a political compass adjusted according to country’s specific understanding of the topics. We test our hypotheses with public opinion data from a representative survey sample that we collected in winter 2019-2020.