Lecturer: Dr. Kingsley Nyarko , Department of Psychology Contact Information: knyarko@ug.edu.gh College of Education School of Continuing and Distance Education 2014/2015 – 2016/2017
Session Overview At the end of the session, the student will be able to • Explain how personality influences the decisions of politicians and voters. • Analyze some current and recent studies on personality of politicians and voters. • Evaluate the role of values and traits in ideological orientation. Slide 2
Session Outline The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows: • Introduction/Background. • The Role of Traits and Values in Ideological Orientations. • Recent and Current Research on Personality of Politicians and Voters. Slide 3
Reading List • Caprara, G., & Vecchione, M. (2009). Personality and Politics, In P. J. Corr & G. Mathews (Eds.). The Cambridge Handbook of Personality Psychology , pp. 589-607. New York: Cambridge University Press. Slide 4
Topic One INTRODUCTION Slide 5
Introduction • Personality assumes an increasingly central role in the analysis of political behavior as traits and values are found to be more influential than traditional socio- demographic characteristics such as gender, age, educational level, occupation, and income in explaining ideological orientation and political preferences. • Eventually, personality appears to play a pivotal role with regard to both the distinctive features of democratic systems, namely the freedom of voice allowed to citizens by voting and choosing the representatives that most suit their opinions and interests Slide 6
Introduction • In this section we look at the role of traits and values in ideological orientations, recent and current research on personality of politicians and voters, and how political psychology can be used to foster national development. Slide 7
Sample Questions 1. How does personality influence the actions and behaviours of politicians? 2. Discuss the role of values and traits in ideological orientation. Slide 8
Topic Two THE ROLE OF TRAITS AND VALUES IN IDEOLOGICAL ORIENTATIONS Slide 9
The Role of Traits and values in Ideological Orientations • Traits and values are embedded in different intellectual traditions and inform us about different things that pertain to personality functioning. According to McCrae and Costa (1990, p.23), traits are “dimensions of individual differences in tendencies to show consistent patterns of thoughts, feelings and actions.” Values, on the other hand are cognitive representation of desirable, abstract, trans-situational goals that serve as guiding principles in people’s lives (Schwartz, 1992). Slide 10
The Role of Traits and values in Ideological Orientations • Whereas traits are enduring dispositions; values are enduring goals. Traits describe what people are like; values refer to what people consider important. Scholars, both earlier and contemporary have indicated the effect that traits may have on political orientation (Block & Block, 2006; Eysenck 1954; Jost 2006) and to the central role of values in politics as major organizers of political evaluations (Feldman, 2003; Knutsen 1995; Mitchell, Tetlock, Mellers & Ordonez, 1993). Slide 11
The Role of Traits and values in Ideological Orientations • McCrae (1996) an advocate of the Big Five Personality trait, indicated that openness to experience is the personality trait that mostly differentiates liberal and conservative in the political arena. • According to his conceptualization, this personality dimension is characterized mainly by fantasy, love for aesthetics, openness to feelings and to actions, tolerance for ideas and values. • He indicated that “within Western societies, open individuals have an affinity for liberal, progressive, left-wing political views, whereas closed individuals prefer conservative, traditional, right- wing views” (McCrae 1996, p. 325). Slide 12
The Role of Traits and values in Ideological Orientations • In his review on the social consequences of Openness, McCrae reports the results of several studies that show that political conservatism is in fact connected to psychological conservatism (McCrae 1996), with low sensation-seeking, behavioural rigidity, social conformity and conventionality in moral reasoning as major psychological correlates of socio-political conservatism. Slide 13
The Role of Traits and values in Ideological Orientations • However, there is no agreement as far as the other Big Five dimensions are concerned, namely: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness and neuroticism. McCrae (1996, p. 328-9) noted that, one cannot “find systematic differences in neuroticism, extraversion, or conscientiousness among political groups. Slide 14
The Role of Traits and values in Ideological Orientations • The case is more complex with regard to agreeableness that does affect political sentiments forming a factor….. called tender - mindedness.” • In connection to extraversion, there is some evidence of a negative correlation between sensation-seeking, an aspect of extraversion, and political conservativism (Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski and Sulloway 2003a). Slide 15
The Role of Traits and values in Ideological Orientations • In their study, Gosling, Rentfrow, and Swam (2003) discovered that conscientiousness was negatively related with liberalism, and positively related with conservatism, although with small correlations. The same trend was observed by Carney in the United State and Caprara in Italy: centre-right voters scored higher on conscientiousness than centre-left voters. Slide 16
The Role of Traits and values in Ideological Orientations • Finally, results regarding emotional stability seem to be rather inconsistent. Only Gosling and colleagues (2003) found that the politically conservative are more emotionally stable than the politically liberal. Jost et al. (2003a) noted that to the extent that conservatives are more generally fearful than others, one might expect that they would also exhibit higher levels of Neuroticism. • However, they did not find evidence of this in their meta- analysis, nor did a similar tendency emerge in the studies conducted in Italy. In the end, emotional stability appears to be a personality dimension largely independent from the political domain. Slide 17
Topic Three RECENT AND CURRENT RESEARCH ON PERSONALITY OF POLITICIANS AND VOTERS Slide 18
Recent and Current Research on Personality of Politicians and Voters • After the cognitive revolution that occurred in the late 1960s, studies of political reasoning were oriented towards the various or diverse strategies that people use to select and organize political information, manage complexity, and to make reasonable choices (Lau 2003; Lau & Sears 1986; Lodge & McGraw 1995; Simon, 1995). • One of the research orientations examined the path taken by people to handle political issues and the interrelated patterns of affect and cognition that lead to stable individual characteristics such as integrative complexity. Slide 19
Recent and Current Research on Personality of Politicians and Voters • This research orientation received enormous consideration as a result of its focus on the examination of the personalities of members of political elites and of the general public by looking at two different dimensions that combine in political reasoning — differentiation and integration. Differentiation means the variety of aspects of an issue or decision that an individual takes into account when making judgments, whereas integration connotes the connections that are perceived and formed among various ideas and elements of judgments (Tetlock 1983, 1984). Slide 20
Recent and Current Research on Personality of Politicians and Voters • Current studies continue to point to individual differences in complexity and sophistication as critical in political reasoning and choice (Krosnick, 1990; Luskin, 1990; Pierce, 1993; Suedfeld & Tetlock, 2001). • In general, studies of politicians have focused mostly on leaders’ decisions, interpersonal styles, motives and worldviews, and have primarily relied on indirect means for assessing personality at a distance, such as content analysis of narratives or archival material, as well as on biographies or expert evaluation of politicians’ personality (Barber, 1985; Etheredge, 1978; George & George, 1998; Prost, 2003; Rubenzer, Faschingbauer & Ones, 2000). Slide 21
Recent and Current Research on Personality of Politicians and Voters • With regard to studies on voters’ personality, the emphasis has mostly been on traits, values, social attitudes and cognitive styles’ co -variation with ideologies self-placement or voting and has primarily relied on self-report methods (Fraley, 2007; Carney, Jost, Gosling & Potter, 2008; Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski & Sulloway, 2003a; McCrae, 1996; Rentfrow, Jost, Gosling & Potter, 2006). Slide 22
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