Personality Traits, Income, and Economic Ideology

Abstract

While the psychological underpinnings of social ideology are well established, less is known about the psychological underpinnings of economic ideology. In this study, I assess whether Big Five personality traits are associated with economic ideology and when personality traits are more strongly or more weakly associated with economic ideology. I hypothesize that low income attenuates the association between the Big Five traits and economic ideology. Studies conducted in Denmark, the United Kingdom, and the United States show that Conscientiousness is positively correlated with economic conservatism, while Agreeableness and Neuroticism are negatively correlated with economic conservatism. Moreover, low income attenuates the association between personality traits and economic ideology. I report a weaker association between Agreeableness and economic ideology among poor people compared to wealthier people in all three countries. Low income also attenuates the association between economic ideology and the traits Openness (Denmark), Extraversion (United Kingdom), and Neuroticism (United States). I contribute to the literature addressing the psychological correlates of economic ideology by showing that (1) economic ideology has a distinct set of personality correlates and (2) low income attenuates the association between some personality traits and economic ideology.

Predispositions Matter…But How? Ideology as a Mediator of Personality’s Effects on EU Support in Five Countries

“…Because data come from two distinct instruments, question wording varies slightly across surveys, but all variables tap the same underlying concepts. Having a uniform survey covering all countries would be ideal, but since unfortunately none exists, we emulate others (e.g., Bakker, ) by compiling results from multiple surveys since they are the only available means for shedding light on the desired relationship.…”

“…The former is preferable because longer instruments better capture traits’ underlying facets; they also generate stronger and more consistent statistical relationships between the B5 and ideology (Bakker & Lelkes, ). Nevertheless, using a 10‐item battery is extremely common (Bakker, ; Carney et al, ; Fatke, ; Gallego & Oberski, ; Gerber et al, ). Though Ludeke and Larsen () recently raised concern about another short instrument (the BFI‐10) used in the World Values Survey, they still noted its reliability in Europe.…”

“…Second, personality’s effect on left‐right ideology is extensively established in the personality literature (Bakker, ; Carney, Jost, Gosling, & Potter, ; Fatke, ; Gerber et al, ; Lewis & Bates, ; Mondak, ). Time after time, left‐ and right‐wing voters exhibit distinctive personality patterns.…”

“…While the direction of specific traits’ effects on ideology is not perfectly generalizable across countries, personality’s overall influence is nevertheless substantial across a global sample (Fatke, ). Studies also show strong personality differences in concepts closely related to left‐right placement: economic ideology, partisan attachments, party switching, social policy preferences, and vote choice (Bakker, ; Bakker et al, ; Fatke, ; Gerber et al, ; Schoen & Schumann, ; Vecchione et al, ). Importantly, several studies imply an indirect relationship between personality and these outcomes (e.g., Schoen & Schumann, , p. 494), but they do not explicitly test one.…”

Liberals Lecture, Conservatives Communicate: analyzing complexity and ideology in 381,609 speeches

“…Across contexts, we expect the language of culturally conservative politicians to be less complex than the language of culturally liberal politicians. The associations between economic leftright ideology (or economic conservatism) and traits such as openness to experience, conscientiousness, need for structure and the value of conformity and security have been found to be much more dependent on voter and country characteristics [20,21,23]. As such we expect the economic left-right dimension to be less consistently associated with complexity.…”