“Beyond Openness to Experience and Conscientiousness: Testing Links between Lower-Level Personality Traits and American Political Orientation”, 2020-12-21 ():
Introduction: Research has consistently revealed positive correlations between political liberalism and Openness to Experience, and between conservatism and Conscientiousness. Most of this research has made use of domain-level models of the Big 5 personality traits. Recent work suggests, however, that each Big 5 trait domain can be divided into distinct aspects or facets, which offer more nuanced characterizations of each trait.
Methods: Across 4 studies (Ns ranging from 1,123 to 116,406), the present research examined the degree to which distinct lower-level traits would be associated with meaningful differences in political orientation. United States residents completed two different hierarchical Big 5 personality measures (the Big 5 Aspect Scales and the Big 5 Inventory-2), as well as a range of measures of political orientation.
Results: Across both personality measures, liberal political orientation showed distinct positive associations with the lower-level traits Openness/Aesthetic Sensitivity, Intellect/Intellectual Curiosity, Compassion, and Withdrawal/Depression, as well as distinct negative associations with Orderliness/Organization, Politeness, and Assertiveness.
Discussion: By examining individual differences at a higher level of granularity, these data provide insight into specific motivations that predispose individuals toward different ends of the political spectrum.