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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.

AbstractA prominent theory in political psychology contends that individual differences in negativity bias explain political ideology: people who are more sensitive to negative stimuli find solace and comfort in conservative approaches to politics. Using self‐reported measures of negativity bias, the evidence is relatively consistent. Yet, using physiological indicators of the negativity bias, the results are, across the board, inconsistent with the negativity bias argument. Building on recent neuroscience work, we propose and test two innovations. First, unconscious and conscious processes are not necessarily aligned. Therefore, we propose that there are different – conscious and unconscious – paths that could link ideology with the negativity bias. Second, individuals vary in their ability and motivation to down‐regulate arousal and reflect on their emotions. As such, the ideology‐negativity bias may emerge in some individuals but not in others. In two preregistered laboratory studies (US and the Netherlands), we find limited evidence for these claims. In a subsequent registered report, we replicate some inconsistent patterns that emerged in study 1. We confirm that self‐reported social conservatism and implicit social conservatism (measured with an IAT) are positively correlated. We also establish that negativity bias is unrelated to social conservatism (both explicit and implicit). We conclude that negativity bias is most likely not the answer to why people on the left and right differ.

Populist rhetoric is often portrayed as deeply emotional, aimed at provoking gut‐level, affective responses. It clearly enthuses some voters, while other voters clearly resent it. Yet we know very little about the affective responses that populist rhetoric actually evokes. For whom is populist rhetoric, particularly its antiestablishment component, arousing, and who has positive or negative affective responses? To analyze this, we study affective responses to antiestablishment and proestablishment rhetoric. We follow the circumplex model and conceptualize affective responses as arousal (measured with skin‐conductance levels) and valence (measured with facial electromyography [fEMG]). We use data (N = 343) collected at different sites (a music festival, the university lab, a religious gathering, a biker festival, a museum, and a fair) and our analyses are based on a preregistered analysis plan. We find no overall differences in affective responses to antiestablishment versus proestablishment rhetoric. We do find, however, that affective responses are conditional on vote choice and education level. Specifically, the lower educated respond with more arousal, and those who vote for the populist radical right also respond with more negative valence. These effects only manifest themselves vis‐à‐vis proestablishment rhetoric and, hence, suggest an incongruency effect. This raises the question of what constitutes the populist counterframe.

Research on personality and political preferences generally assumes unidirectional causal influence of the former on the latter. However, there are reasons to believe that citizens might adopt what they perceive as politically congruent psychological attributes, or at least be motivated to view themselves as having these attributes. We test this hypothesis in a series of studies. Results of preregistered panel analyses in three countries suggest reciprocal causal influences between self-reported personality traits and political preferences. In two two-wave survey experiments, a subtle political prime at the beginning of a survey resulted in self-reported personality traits that were more aligned with political preferences gauged in a previous assessment. We discuss how concurrent assessment within the context of a political survey might overestimate the causal influence of personality traits on political preferences and how political polarization might be exacerbated by political opponents adopting different personality characteristics or self-perceptions thereof.

Canonical theories of opinion formation attribute an important role to affect. But how and for whom affect matters is theoretically underdeveloped. We establish the circumplex model in political science as a theory of core affect. In this theory unconscious emotional processes vary in level (arousal, measured with skin conductance) and direction (valence, measured with facial electromyography). We theorize that knowledge, attitude extremity, and (in)congruence with political rhetoric explain variation in affective responses. In a large lab study (N = 397), participants watched video clips with left-wing or right-wing rhetoric on prominent issues. We find that people with extreme attitudes experience more arousal in response to political rhetoric and that political rhetoric incongruent with prior attitudes evokes negative affect. Moreover, we show that affective responses lead to opinion change, independent of self-reported emotions. We conclude by setting a research agenda for the alignment between affective and cognitive components of emotions and their consequences.

Applications of automated text analysis measuring topics, ideology, sentiment or even personality are booming in fields like political science and political psychology. These developments are to be applauded as they bring about novel insights about politics using new sources of (unstructured) data. However, a divide exists between work in both disciplines using text as data. In this paper we argue in favor of more integration across disciplinary boundaries, structuring our case around four key issues in the research process: (i) sampling text; (ii) authorship as meta data; (iii) pre-processing text; (iv) analyzing text. Along the way we demonstrate that an assessment of speaker characteristics may crucially depend on the text sources under study, and that the use of sentiment words correlates with estimates of policy positions, with implications for interpretation of the latter. As such, this paper contributes to a critical discussion about the merits of automated text analysis methods in political psychology and political science, with an eye towards advancing the considerable potential of text as data in the study of politics.

Applications of automated text analysis measuring topics, ideology, sentiment or even personality are booming in fields like political science and political psychology. These developments are to be applauded as they bring about novel insights about politics using new sources of (unstructured) data. However, a divide exists between work in both disciplines using text as data. In this paper we argue in favor of more integration across disciplinary boundaries, structuring our case around four key issues in the research process: (i) sampling text; (ii) authorship as meta data; (iii) pre-processing text; (iv) analyzing text. Along the way we demonstrate that an assessment of speaker characteristics may crucially depend on the text sources under study, and that the use of sentiment words correlates with estimates of policy positions, with implications for interpretation of the latter. As such, this paper contributes to a critical discussion about the merits of automated text analysis methods in political psychology and political science, with an eye towards advancing the considerable potential of text as data in the study of politics. ; peerReviewed ; publishedVersion

AbstractWhat are the psychological roots of support for populist parties or outfits such as the Tea Party, the Dutch Party for Freedom or Germany's Left Party? Populist parties have as a common denominator that they employ an anti‐establishment message, which they combine with some 'host' ideology. Building on the congruency model of political preference, it is to be expected that a voter's personality should match with the message and position of his or her party. This article theorises that a low score on the personality trait Agreeableness matches the anti‐establishment message and should predict voting for populist parties. Evidence is found for this hypothesis in the United States, the Netherlands and Germany. The relationship between low Agreeableness and voting for populist parties is robust, controlling for other personality traits, authoritarianism, sociodemographic characteristics and ideology. Thus, explanations of the success of populism should take personality traits into account.

We still do not fully understand why attitudes toward the European Union differ among citizens. In this study, we turn to the Big Five personality traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism as antecedents of European Union attitudes. In a national survey, we focus on attitudes toward widening and deepening of the European Union, trust in European Union institutions, identification with the European Union and negative affect experienced toward the European Union. We theorize that the Big Five traits are heterogeneously associated with the different European Union attitudes. We confirm that the Big Five traits are indeed associated with some but not all European Union attitudes. Accordingly, personality is expected to shape how citizens' respond to changes in the institutional set-up of the European Union.