Beyond Total Effects: Exploring the Interplay of Personality and Attitudes in Affecting Turnout in the 2009 German Federal Election

2015

Political Psychology

Direct democracy plays a prominent role in the explanation of institutional trust. To date, however, empirical findings on the effects of direct democracy remain inconclusive. In this article, we argue that this inconclusiveness can be partly ascribed to the diverse effects direct democracy has on individuals. In other words, direct democracy influences institutional trust, but how and to what degree depends on individuals’ personality traits. Running hierarchical analyses of unique survey data from a random sample of eligible Swiss voters, we document three findings: First, we show that the number of ballot measures is not directly associated with institutional trust. Second, we demonstrate that the Big Five personality traits affect the propensity to trust. Third, some of these traits also alter the relationship between direct democracy and institutional trust, suggesting that certain personality types are more likely to be sensitive to popular votes than others and that not everyone is equally likely to respond to political stimuli, even in highly democratic environments.

Section: The Big Five Traits Institutional Trust and Direct Democracymentioning

confidence: 99%

Direct Democracy and Institutional Trust: Relationships and Differences Across Personality Traits

Freitag

2015

Political Psychology

“…, ; Mondak et al. ; Schoen and Steinbrecher ). We add to this and present a framework differing from the study by Dinesen et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Big Five in Context: Personality, Diversity and Attitudes toward Equal Opportunities for Immigrants in Switzerland

Swiss Political Sci Review

2015

The paper analyzes the link between personality traits and attitudes of Swiss citizens toward equal opportunities for immigrants. In particular, we examine the extent to which this relationship is moderated by the socio‐structural context. We test the assumption that the direct links between personality traits and attitudes toward equal opportunities are strengthened by perceived ethnic diversity. Based on our empirical analyses, we are able to replicate central findings of the research on personality traits and attitudes toward immigrants for the Swiss context. While openness toward experience and agreeableness are positively related to a preference for equal opportunities, conscientiousness is negatively linked to these attitudes. Furthermore, our results reveal that the link between conscientiousness and attitudes toward equal opportunities is significantly moderated by the perceived share of foreigners in the neighborhood. This finding is especially relevant for future research on the effects of personality traits.

“…This is a very common argument in the literature on personality traits and voting behavior or political participation in general (Gallego and Oberski ; Mondak et al. ; Schimpf and Schoen ; Schoen and Schumann ; Schoen and Steinbrecher ; Wang ). Accordingly, we argue that attitudes which are in line with right‐wing populist voting might act as mediators .…”

Section: Personality Traits and Voting For The Svpmentioning

confidence: 91%

Personality and Voting for a Right‐Wing Populist Party – Evidence from Switzerland

Swiss Political Sci Review

Zampieri

Freitag

2018

Many established democracies are currently challenged by populist parties and movements. Switzerland is a particularly interesting case because it has an established right-wing populist party that is part of the governmental coalition on a regular basis: the Swiss People's Party (SVP). We study the electoral success of the SVP from a psychological perspective and argue that dispositions captured by the Big Five personality traits are related to voting for the SVP. Analyzing data from the Swiss Electoral Study (Selects) 2015, we find support for a negative relationship between openness to experience and agreeableness and voting for the SVP as well as a positive relationship between conscientiousness and extraversion and voting for this rightwing populist party. Additional analyses indicate that attitudes toward immigration mediate these relationships to some degree. Agreeableness and conscientiousness are, however, still systematically related to voting for the SVP when attitudinal factors are controlled for.