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Although an initial wave of research during the Vietnam War era suggested that the political attitudes of American veterans were not significantly different from those of the public at large, more recent studies argue that this may no longer be true. Thus far, however, the reason for this difference has gone unexplored: are veterans from the volunteer era different because a certain type of person is drawn to military life (selection), or are their attitudes shaped by their experience of service (socialization)? Using new survey data on the political attitudes of Americans, and statistical techniques designed to improve our estimation of the difference between selection and socialization effects, we examine this question, assessing the extent to which the two factors play a role in this attitudinal difference. Our results have implications for political representation, as well as the impact of partisan polarization and recruitment patterns on civil–military relations.

Drawing from the concept of citizenship in the novel, Starship Troopers, we consider public opinion in a world in which 'service guarantees citizenship.' We do this by examining the political attitudes of US (volunteer) veterans-a group generally neglected in the public opinion literature-relative to the adult population at large. Using data from the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we demonstrate that, as a group, veterans tend to be more ideologically conservative and more likely to identify as Republican than their nonveteran counterparts. This finding holds for both individual issues and self-identification. [Reprinted by permission; copyright Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society/Sage Publications Inc.]

Drawing from the concept of citizenship in the novel, Starship Troopers, we consider public opinion in a world in which "service guarantees citizenship." We do this by examining the political attitudes of US (volunteer) veterans—a group generally neglected in the public opinion literature—relative to the adult population at large. Using data from the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we demonstrate that, as a group, veterans tend to be more ideologically conservative and more likely to identify as Republican than their nonveteran counterparts. This finding holds for both individual issues and self-identification.

Why do some individuals prefer lesser-known, riskier experiences over more well-known options in life? In this paper, we focus on the case of the electoral advantage to incumbency, and the role that psychological entropy reduction can play in undermining that advantage among individuals who lack simplifying heuristics, such as party brand loyalty. We build on recent work in political psychology, applying a more general political psychology framework linking the Big Five personality trait of Openness to a compulsion to gather and process information. Using data from the 2014 and 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Studies, we find more Open respondents are more willing to vote for more uncertain House challengers at higher rates, but only among Independent respondents who are unable to rely on partisan cues to simplify the psychological entropy presented by such challengers. This suggests Openness captures relative preferences for encountering and reducing psychological entropy rather than traditionally defined risk preferences.

Intro -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Acknowledgments -- Part I. Foundations -- Chapter 1. Introduction -- Chapter 2. Modeling Individual Differences: Translating Personality Traits into Mathematical Parameters -- Chapter 3. Read My Lips: Measuring Personality Through Legislative Speech -- Part II. Revisiting the Textbook Congress -- Chapter 4. Securing Reelection: Deterrence and Disbursements -- Chapter 5. Committee Assignments -- Chapter 6. Proposing and Passing Legislation -- Chapter 7. Cooperation, Obstruction, and Party Discipline: Shifting Norms in the US Congress -- Chapter 8. Media Presence and Home Style -- Chapter 9. Moving On -- Part III. Bringing It All Together -- Chapter 10. More than a Conclusion: Personality, Politics, and Polarization -- Bibliography -- Index.

Whatever you think about the widening divide between Democrats and Republicans, ideological differences do not explain why politicians from the same parties, who share the same goals and policy preferences, often argue fiercely about how best to attain them. This perplexing misalignment suggests that we are missing an important piece of the puzzle. Political scientists have increasingly drawn on the relationship between voters' personalities and political orientation, but there has been little empirically grounded research looking at how legislators' personalities influence their performance on Capitol Hill. With More Than a Feeling, Adam J. Ramey, Jonathan D. Klingler, and Gary E. Hollibaugh, Jr. have developed an innovative framework incorporating what are known as the Big Five dimensions of personality--openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism--to improve our understanding of political behavior among members of Congress. To determine how strongly individuals display these traits, the authors identified correlates across a wealth of data, including speeches, campaign contributions and expenditures, committee involvement, willingness to filibuster, and even Twitter feeds. They then show how we might expect to see the influence of these traits across all aspects of Congress members' political behavior--from the type and quantity of legislation they sponsor and their style of communication to whether they decide to run again or seek a higher office. They also argue convincingly that the types of personalities that have come to dominate Capitol Hill in recent years may be contributing to a lot of the gridlock and frustration plaguing the American political system

For years, countless scholars have posited the role of constituency and party pressure on legislators' roll call voting records. Indeed, though popular estimates of legislators' preferences often come from roll call data (e.g., DW-NOMINATE scores), most scholars are careful to note that these are not necessarily measures of ideology per se but rather of legislators' revealed preferences—that is, they reflect both legislators' ideological commitments as well as the influence of party and constituency. In this paper, we offer fairly robust evidence that existing measures of legislator behavior may be closer to their preferences than once thought. Using a novel survey of former members of the House of Representatives, we leverage the severing of the electoral connection and lack of institutional party pressure to show that legislators' preferences as measured by existing methods closely mirror their own perceptions of themselves.

Individuals who are more sensitive to negative outcomes from error are more likely to provide nonresponses in surveys. We argue Neurotics' sensitivity to negative outcomes leads them to avoid gathering costly information and forming/reporting opinions about stimuli. Using data from the 2014 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we show Neuroticism is strongly and positively associated with NA/DK responses when placing politicians on a seven-point ideological scale. We then introduce to political science a Bayesian hierarchical model that allows nonresponse to be generated by both a lack of information as well as disincentives for response. Using this model, we show that the NA/DK responses in these data are due to inhibited information collection and indecision from error avoidance by Neurotics.

We apply recent advances in machine learning to measure Congressmember personality traits using floor speeches from 1996 to 2014. We also demonstrate the superiority of text-based measurement over survey-based measurement by showing that personality traits are correlated with survey response rates for members of Congress. Finally, we provide one empirical application showcasing the importance of personality on congressional behavior.