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The Secret Lives of Liberals and Conservatives:Personality
Profiles, Interaction Styles, and theThings They Leave Behind
Dana R. CarneyColumbia University
John T. JostNew York University
Samuel D. GoslingUniversity of Texas at Austin
Jeff PotterCambridge, Massachusetts
Although skeptics continue to doubt that most people are
ideological, evidence sug-gests that meaningful left-right
differences do exist and that they may be rooted in
basicpersonality dispositions, that is, relatively stable
individual differences in psychologicalneeds, motives, and
orientations toward the world. Seventy-five years of theory
andresearch on personality and political orientation has produced a
long list of dispositions,traits, and behaviors. Applying a theory
of ideology as motivated social cognition and aBig Five framework,
we find that two traits, Openness to New Experiences and
Con-scientiousness, parsimoniously capture many of the ways in
which individual differencesunderlying political orientation have
been conceptualized. In three studies we investigatethe
relationship between personality and political orientation using
multiple domainsand measurement techniques, including:
self-reported personality assessment; nonverbalbehavior in the
context of social interaction; and personal possessions and the
charac-teristics of living and working spaces. We obtained
consistent and converging evidencethat personality differences
between liberals and conservatives are robust, replicable,and
behaviorally significant, especially with respect to social (vs.
economic) dimen-sions of ideology. In general, liberals are more
open-minded, creative, curious, and
Political Psychology, Vol. 29, No. 6, 2008
807
0162-895X 2008 International Society of Political
PsychologyPublished by Wiley Periodicals, Inc., 350 Main Street,
Malden, MA 02148, USA
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novelty seeking, whereas conservatives are more orderly,
conventional, and betterorganized.
KEY WORDS: Political orientation, Ideology, Liberalism,
Conservatism, Personality, Openness,Conscientiousness, Nonverbal
behavior
The individuals pattern of thought, whatever its content,
reflects hispersonality and is not merely an aggregate of opinions
picked up helter-skelter from the ideological environment.
(Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950, p.
176)
Despite evidence of stark ideological polarization in American
and Euro-pean politics (Abramowitz & Saunders, 2005; Bishop,
2004; Bobbio, 1996; Jost,2006), a number of sociologists,
psychologists, and political scientists remainskeptical about the
notion that most people are ideological in any stable, con-sistent,
or profound sense (Baker, 2005; Bishop, 2005; Converse, 2000;
Fiorina,Abrams, & Pope, 2006; McGuire, 1999; Zaller, 1992).
There are several reasonsfor the skepticism, and many of these can
be traced to theoretical and empiricalclaims first made in the
1950s and 1960s by Raymond Aron, Edward Shils,Daniel Bell, Seymour
Lipset, and Philip Converse. These end-of-ideology pro-ponents
argued that there were no major differences between the left and
rightin terms of political content or psychological characteristics
and that there wasno compelling cognitive or motivational structure
to ideologies such as liberal-ism and conservatism. Jost (2006)
reevaluated these skeptical claims and con-cluded that, although
ordinary citizens may fail strict tests of
ideologicalsophistication, most people can and do use ideological
constructs such as liber-alism and conservatism meaningfully and
appropriately and that they are indeedmotivated by ideological
commitments that guide (or constrain) both attitudesand
behaviors.
Skepticism about the role of ideology in everyday life persists
at least in partbecause of the ambiguity and multiplicity of
definitions of the term that pervadeboth popular and scientific
discussions (Gerring, 1997; see also Jost, 2006, pp.652654). In
this article, we conceptualize political ideology in terms of
onesrelative position on an abstract left-right (or
liberal-conservative) dimension that iscomprised of two core
aspects that tend to be correlated with one another, namely:(a)
acceptance versus rejection of inequality and (b) preference for
social changevs. preservation of the societal status quo (see also
Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, &Sulloway, 2003a, 2003b; Jost, Nosek,
& Gosling, 2008). The theoretical possibil-ity we investigate
in this research program is that, as Tomkins (1963) argued longago,
ideological differences between the left and right are partially
rooted in basicpersonality dispositions. That is, ideology both
reflects and reinforces individualdifferences in fundamental
psychological needs, motives, and orientations towardthe world.
808 Carney et al.
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Theories of Personality and Political Orientation
For almost as long as social scientists have located political
orientation on asingle left-right (or, in the United States, a
liberal-conservative) dimension, theyhave speculated about the
personality characteristics that typify each ideologicalpole (e.g.,
Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950;
Constantini &Craik, 1980; DiRenzo, 1974; Eysenck, 1954;
McClosky, 1958; Tomkins, 1963).As Tetlock and Mitchell (1993) have
pointed out, it is possible to generate eitherflattering or
unflattering psychological portraits at either end of the
politicalspectrum. The important question, from a scientific point
of view, is not whetherany given theory is gratifying to left-wing
or right-wing audiences, but whether itpossesses truth value.
Obtaining an accurate understanding of the personalityneeds and
characteristics of liberals and conservatives has taken on added
urgencyin the current political climate, in which people from
liberal blue states find itincreasingly difficult to understand
people from conservative red states and viceversa (see Abramowitz
& Saunders, 2005; Bishop, 2004; Rentfrow, Jost, Gosling,&
Potter, 2009).
In this article, we draw on eclectic sources of data to
investigate the degree towhich historical speculations concerning
the traits of liberals and conservativespossess genuine diagnostic
utility, that is, empirical accuracy.1 We address threemain
questions. First, does political orientation covary with basic
psychologicaldimensions in the ways that have been suggested (but
seldom comprehensivelyinvestigated) by theorists over the past
several decades? Second, what, specifically,are the differences (as
well as similarities) between liberals and conservatives interms of
personality profiles and dispositions, and how strong are they?
Third, ifthere are indeed meaningful psychological differences
between liberals and con-servatives, how are they manifested in
daily behavior?
Influential theories mapping personality profiles to political
ideology weredeveloped by Fromm (1947, 1964), Adorno et al. (1950),
Tomkins (1963), Brown(1965), Bem (1970), and Wilson (1973), among
others. In this section, we reviewa number of these perspectives,
which span the last 75 years. All of these theoriesassume that
specific ideologies have for different individuals, different
degrees ofappeal, a matter that depends upon the individuals needs
and the degree to whichthese needs are being satisfied or
frustrated (Adorno et al., 1950, p. 2). Althoughthe specific
personality needs and characteristics under investigation
(italicizedbelow) have varied somewhat across cultural contexts and
historical periods, wewill show that the underlying contents
identified by diverse theorists and observersconverge to a
remarkable degree. Moreover, these characterizations are
broadlyconsistent with a psychological theory of political ideology
as motivated social
1 For purposes of simplicity in exposition we frequently use the
categorical terms of liberalsand conservatives, although these
labels refer to opposite poles of a single, underlying
dimension,and our statistical analyses treat political orientation
as a continuous variable (see also Fuchs &Klingemann, 1990;
Jost, 2006; Knight, 1999).
809Liberals and Conservatives
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cognition (Jost et al., 2003a, 2003b) and the hypothesis that
dispositional (as wellas situational) differences in epistemic and
existential needs to manage uncertaintyand threat are linked to
individual preferences for liberalism versus conservatism(Jost et
al., 2007).
Early Theories, 193055
Early accounts of personality differences between left-wingers
and right-wingers focused largely on issues that would come to
define the syndrome ofauthoritarianism. Roger Brown (1965) famously
recounted the work of Nazipsychologist Erich Jaensch (1938), who
proposed one of the first distinctionsbetween two personality types
with clear political significance. The J-type, accord-ing to
Jaensch, was predisposed to make a good Nazi: J made definite,
unam-biguous perceptual judgments and persisted in them . . . [he]
would recognize thathuman behavior is fixed by blood, soil, and
national tradition . . . would be tough,masculine, firm; a man you
could rely on (Brown, 1965, p. 478, emphasis added).By contrast,
the S-Type was someone of racially mixed heredity and includedJews,
Parisians, East Asians, and communists. As Brown observed:
The S-Type [described a] synaesthetic: one who enjoys
concomitantsensation, a subjective experience from another sense
than the one beingstimulated, as in color hearing. Synaesthesia,
which we are likely toregard as a poets gift, seemed to Jaensch to
be a kind of perceptualslovenliness, the qualities of one sense
carelessly mixed with those ofanother . . . characterized by
ambiguous and indefinite judgments and tobe lacking in
perseverance. . . . The S would be a man with so-calledLiberal
views; one who would think of environment and education asthe
determinants of behavior; one who takes a childish wanton pleasure
inbeing eccentric, S would say individualistic. (Brown, 1965, p.
477,emphasis added)
Adorno et al. (1950) accepted at least a few elements of
Jaenschs (1938) descrip-tion but viewed the aggressive J-type as a
societal menace, an authoritarian, apotential fascistnot as a
cultural ideal. The right-wing personality type wasrecast as rigid,
conventional, intolerant, xenophobic, and obedient to
authorityfigures. Brown (1965) noted that What Jaensch called
stability we called rigid-ity and the flaccidity and eccentricity
of Jaenschs despised S-Type were for us theflexibility and
individualism of the democratic equalitarian (p. 478,
emphasisadded). It is remarkable that such diametrically opposed
theorists as Jaensch andAdorno would advance parallel personality
theories linking general psychologicalcharacteristics to specific
ideological belief systems, but this is only one of manyhistorical
volleys in the longstanding effort to understand the relationship
betweenpersonality and politics.
810 Carney et al.
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Members of the Frankfurt Schoolincluding Adorno, Fromm,
Horkheimer,Reich, and otherswere strongly influenced by both Karl
Marx and SigmundFreud. From Marx they inherited the notion that
ideology is derived from eco-nomic class interests and material
conditions of the capitalist system. But to reallyunderstand the
relationship between the individual and society and the allure
ofpolitical and religious ideologies, these theorists needed a
psychology. What wasavailable to them at the time was Freudian
psychology, and so the members of theFrankfurt School turned to
Freuds writings on character structure. For example,Freud
identified one personality configuration that seemed particularly
relevant topolitical orientation:
The people I am about to describe are noteworthy for a regular
combi-nation of the three following characteristics. They are
especially orderly,parsimonious, and obstinate . . . Orderly covers
the notion of bodilycleanliness, as well as of conscientiousness in
carrying out small dutiesand trustworthiness . . . Parsimony may
appear in the exaggerated formof avarice; and obstinacy can go over
into defiance, to which rage andrevengefulness are easily joined .
. . it seems to me incontestable that allthree in some way belong
together. (Freud, 1959/1991, pp. 2126,emphasis added)
Freud referred to this collection of traitsorderliness,
parsimony, andobstinacyas the anal character (see also Freud,
1930/1961, pp. 4044), but oneneed not retain his scatological
terminology to consider the possibility that thesecharacteristics
tend to co-occur. Indeed, Sears (1936) found in a sample of
37fraternity brothers that peer ratings of a given individuals
degree of orderliness,stinginess (parsimony), and obstinacy were
significantly intercorrelated at .36 orabove (see also Hilgard,
1952, pp. 1516).
Fromm (1947) built on Freuds conception of the anal character,
but herenamed it the hoarding orientation and suggested that it
was: Conservative,less interested in ruthless acquisition than in
methodical economic pursuits, basedon sound principles and on the
preservation of what had been acquired (p. 81,emphasis added).
Fromm described the hoarding character in some detail:
This orientation makes people have little faith in anything new
they mightget from the outside world; their security is based upon
hoarding andsaving, while spending is felt to be a threat . . .
Their miserliness refers tomoney and material things as well as to
feelings and thoughts . . . Thehoarding person often shows a
particular kind of faithfulness towardpeople and even toward
memories . . . They know everything but aresterile and incapable of
productive thinking . . . One can recognize thesepeople too by
facial expressions and gestures. Theirs is the tight-lippedmouth;
their gestures are characteristic of the withdrawn attitude . .
.
811Liberals and Conservatives
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Another characteristic element in this attitude is pedantic
orderli-ness . . . his orderliness is sterile and rigid. He cannot
endure things outof place and will automatically rearrange them . .
. His compulsive clean-liness is another expression of his need to
undo contact with the outsideworld. (Fromm, 1947, pp. 6566,
emphasis added)
Although much of this description seems critical, Fromm
explicitly cited bothpositive and negative aspects of the hoarding
(or preserving) orientation. Thepositive traits he listed include
being careful, reserved, practical, methodical,orderly, loyal, and
tenacious (p. 115). On the negative side, Fromm stressed thatthis
personality type could be stingy, cold, anxious, suspicious,
stubborn, obses-sional, and unimaginative.2
Middle Era Theories, 195580
Psychological investigations of the personalities of liberals
and conservativesbetween 1955 and 1980 built on the earlier work on
authoritarianism but ponderedan ever-widening circle of traits.
Daryl Bem (1970, pp. 1921) described anunpublished study by Maccoby
(1968) that set out to test Fromms (1964) theoryof the left-wing
biophilous character and the right-wing necrophilouscharacter:
A person with intense love of life is attracted to that which is
alive,which grows, which is free and unpredictable. He has an
aversion toviolence and all that destroys life . . . dislikes
sterile and rigid order. . . rejects being mechanized, becoming a
lifeless part of machine-likeorganization. He enjoys life in all
its manifestations in contrast to mereexcitement or thrills. He
believes in molding and influencing by love,reason and example
rather than by force . . . At the other pole, thereare individuals
attracted to that which is rigidly ordered, mechanical,and unalive.
These people do not like anything free and uncontrolled.They feel
that people must be regulated within well-oiled machines.(Maccoby,
1968, p. 2, quoted in Bem, 1970, p. 20, emphasisadded)
Maccoby and Fromm constructed a questionnaire to measure these
two per-sonality poles and found that supporters of liberal and
left-wing candidates in the1968 Presidential primaries (e.g., E.
McCarthy, N. Rockefeller, and R. F.Kennedy) scored
disproportionately at the life-loving end of the scale, whereas
2 Although there has been no direct attempt to assess Fromms
(1947) theory, there is at least somefactor analytic evidence that
authoritarian conservatism is associated with anal (or
obsessional)characteristics (Kline & Cooper, 1984).
812 Carney et al.
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supporters of conservative and right-wing candidates (e.g., R.
Nixon, R. Reagan,and G. Wallace) scored disproportionately at the
mechanistic end of the scale.Bem (1970) also noted that scores on
this scale predicted liberal versus conserva-tive opinions on
specific issues. The distinction between life-loving and
mecha-nistic personality styles is noteworthy not only for its
originality and the fact thatit received at least some empirical
support in the late 1960s, but also because of thefact that some
features of the distinction (e.g., an attraction to
unpredictable,unconstrained life experiences vs. self-control,
orderliness, and mechanistic coor-dination) parallel other accounts
of liberal versus conservative personality styles,including Sylvan
Tomkins (1963) theory of ideological polarity.
According to Tomkins (1963), people adopt ideo-affective
postures towardthe world that are either leftist (stressing freedom
and humanism) or rightist(focusing on rule following and normative
concerns). People who resonate withleft-wing ideologies believe
that people are basically good and that the goal ofsociety should
be to foster human creativity and experience. Those who
resonatewith right-wing ideologies, by contrast, believe that
people are inherently flawedand that the function of society is to
set rules and limits to prevent irresponsiblebehavior. These
differences, according to Tomkins, have important implicationsfor
emotions and their control:
The left-wing theorist stresses the toxicity of affect control
and inhibition,and it therefore becomes a special case of the
principle of minimizingnegative affect that such control should be
kept to a minimum . . . He islikely to stress the value both to the
individual and to society of anopenness and tolerance for
intrusions of the irrational, of the Dionysian. . . The right-wing
ideologist sets himself sternly against such intrusionsand argues
for the importance of controlling affects in the interest
ofmorality, achievement, piety . . . he is for some norm, which may
requireheroic mobilization of affect and energy to achieve or which
may requireunrelenting hostility against those who challenge the
good. (Tomkins,1963, p. 407, emphasis added)
Like Fromm (1947), Tomkins saw advantages to both left-wing and
right-wingpersonality styles. Whereas the former is associated with
humanism, creativity,openness, and emotional expression (especially
enthusiasm and excitement), thelatter is associated with norm
attainment, conscientiousness, and morality. Severalstudies have
revealed that liberals score higher than conservatives on measures
ofsensation seeking and imaginativeness (Feather, 1979, 1984; Levin
& Schalmo,1974), whereas conservatives score higher than
liberals on measures of self-control and orderliness (Constantini
& Craik, 1980; Milbrath, 1962; St. Angelo &Dyson,
1968).
A dynamic theory of conservatism was proposed by Wilson (1973),
whointegrated the notion that there are emotional differences
between liberals and
813Liberals and Conservatives
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conservatives with earlier work on dogmatism and intolerance of
ambiguity.The gist of the theory is that politically conservative
individuals are driven by ageneralized susceptibility to
experiencing threat or anxiety in the face of uncer-tainty (Wilson,
1973, p. 259). Wilson and his collaborators suggested
thatconservatism is determined by genetic factors such as trait
anxiety, stimulusaversion, and low IQ, as well as environmental
factors, such as parental incon-sistency and aggressiveness, low
self-esteem, and low social class. Sources ofthreat and/or
uncertainty in the social world (e.g., death, dissent,
immigration,complexity, ambiguity, social change, and anarchy) were
seen as prompting con-servative ideological responses, including
conventionalism, ethnocentrism,authoritarianism, militarism, moral
rigidity, and religious dogmatism. Much ofWilsons account has
received correlational support, most especially the notionthat
situational and dispositional factors that produce heightened
psychologicalneeds to reduce uncertainty and threat tend to be
associated with proponents ofconservative (rather than liberal)
ideology (see Jost et al., 2003a, for a meta-analytic review).
Recent Theories, 19802007
Over the last quarter of a century, psychological accounts of
differencesbetween liberals and conservatives have focused largely
on the dimension ofopen-mindedness versus closed-mindedness.
Building on earlier traditions ofresearch on authoritarianism and
uncertainty avoidance, numerous studies haveshown that liberals
tend to score higher than conservatives on individual
differencemeasures of openness, cognitive flexibility, and
integrative complexity (e.g., Alte-meyer, 1998; Sidanius, 1985;
Tetlock, 1983, 1984; Tetlock, Bernzweig, & Gallant,1985).
Furthermore, conservatives tend to possess stronger personal needs
fororder, structure, closure, and decisiveness in comparison with
liberals (e.g., Jostet al., 2003a, 2003b; Kruglanski, 2005; Van
Hiel, Pandelaere, & Duriez, 2004).These findings and many
others seem to fit an uncertainty-threat model of
politicalorientation, as summarized by Jost et al. (2003a):
We regard political conservatism as an ideological belief system
that issignificantly (but not completely) related to motivational
concerns havingto do with the psychological management of
uncertainty and fear. Spe-cifically, the avoidance of uncertainty
(and the striving for certainty) maybe particularly tied to one
core dimension of conservative thought, resis-tance to change. . .
. Similarly, concerns with fear and threat may belinked to the
second core dimension of conservatism, endorsement ofinequality. .
. . Although resistance to change and support for inequalityare
conceptually distinguishable, we have argued that they are
psycho-logically interrelated, in part because motives pertaining
to uncertaintyand threat are interrelated. . . . (p. 369)
814 Carney et al.
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Implications of this theoretical model were further tested by
Bonanno and Jost(2006); Jost et al. (2007); Amodio, Jost, Master,
and Yee (2007); and Jost et al.(2008).
A longitudinal study by Block and Block (2006) revealed that
many of thepersonality differences between liberals and
conservatives that appear in adult-hood are already present when
children are in nursery school, long before theydefine themselves
in terms of political orientation. Specifically, preschool
childrenwho later identified themselves as liberal were perceived
by their teachers as:self-reliant, energetic, emotionally
expressive, gregarious, and impulsive. Bycontrast, those children
who later identified as conservative were seen as: rigid,inhibited,
indecisive, fearful, and overcontrolled. These findingsespecially
inconjunction with adult data (see Jost et al., 2003a, 2003b, for a
summary) andgrowing evidence that there is a heritable component of
political attitudes (Alford,Funk, & Hibbing, 2005)appear to
substantiate the convictions of Adorno et al.,Tomkins, Wilson, and
many others that basic personality dimensions underlieideological
differences between the left and right. The problem, however, is
thatprevious research on personality and political orientation over
the last 75 years hasbeen far from systematic, coordinated, or
cumulative. Each investigator (or team ofinvestigators) has merely
added a new distinction or way of characterizing liberalsand
conservatives without attempting to develop a common or shared
frameworkfor interpreting and integrating the mass of theories and
findings.
An Integrative Taxonomy and Overview of the Current Research
In an effort to distill a core set of personality
characteristics that have beentheorized to distinguish between
political liberals and conservatives, we havelisted in Table 1 the
traits that have figured most prominently in relevant
psycho-logical theories since 1930. To help organize the resulting
list into thematiccategories that could be used to guide our
research program, we drew heavily uponconceptual and empirical
contributions of the Big Five model of personality,which provides a
useful organizing framework for classifying and measuringdistinct,
relatively nonoverlapping personality dimensions (e.g., Goldberg,
1992;John & Srivastava, 1999; McCrae & Costa, 1999;
Wiggins, 1996). Because of theunprecedented scope,
comprehensiveness, and empirical backing of the Big Fiveframework,
we found it to be uniquely helpful as a means of cataloguing
andassessing the validity of the enormous number of trait
descriptions of liberals andconservatives that psychologists have
generated over the last 75 years (see alsoCaprara & Zimbardo,
2004). Thus, for each of the descriptive traits (or clusters
oftraits) listed in Table 1, we have sought to identify which of
the five basic person-ality dimensions best capture the essence of
the description. The result is aremarkable consensus over more than
seven decades (and across numerous cul-tures and languages) that
the two personality dimensions that should be mostrelated to
political orientation are Openness to Experienceconsistently
theorized
815Liberals and Conservatives
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to be higher among liberalsand Conscientiousnesssometimes
theorized to behigher among conservatives. Traits associated with
the other three dimensions(Extraversion, Agreeableness, and
Neuroticism) have occasionally been linked topolitical orientation
in previous theorizing (see Table 1), but their mention hasbeen far
less frequent and consistent.
Moreover, profiles of liberals as relatively high on Openness
(and low onConscientiousness) and conservatives as relatively high
on Conscientiousness (andlow on Openness) fit with an integrative
theory of ideology as motivated socialcognition:
Table 1. Personality Traits (and Their Big Five Classifications)
Theorized to be Associated withLiberal (or Left-Wing) and
Conservative (or Right-Wing) Orientation, 19302007
Liberal/Left-Wing Conservative/Right-Wing
Slovenly, ambiguous, indifferent1 (C-)Eccentric, sensitive,
individualistic1,3 (O+)Open, tolerant, flexible2,3,9,20
(O+)Life-loving, free, unpredictable7,8 (O+, C-, E+)Creative,
imaginative, curious9,10,11,20 (O+)Expressive, enthusiastic9,22
(O+, E+)Excited, sensation-seeking9,10,11,20 (O+, E+)Desire for
novelty, diversity9,20 (O+)Uncontrolled, impulsive9,12,13,22 (C-,
E+)Complex, nuanced16,17,18,20,21 (O+)Open-minded20,21 (O+)Open to
experience10,11,20,23,24,25 (O+)
Definite, persistent, tenacious1,2,5 (C+)Tough, masculine,
firm1,2,3,18 (C+, A-)Reliable, trustworthy, faithful, loyal1,4,5
(C+, A+)Stable, consistent1,2 (C+, N-)Rigid,
intolerant2,3,5,7,8,15,18,20,22 (O-, A-)Conventional,
ordinary2,3,5,18 (O-, C+)Obedient, conformist2,3,18 (O-, C+,
A+)Fearful, threatened2,15,18,20,22 (N+)Xenophobic,
prejudiced2,3,15,18,19 (O-, A-)Orderly,
organized4,5,7,8,12,13,14,20 (C+)Parsimonious, thrifty, stingy4,5
(C+)Clean, sterile4,5,7,8 (C+)Obstinate, stubborn4,5 (O-, C+,
A-)Aggressive, angry, vengeful2,3,4,15 (A-)Careful, practical,
methodical5 (O-, C+)Withdrawn, reserved5,9 (E-)Stern, cold,
mechanical5,7,8,9 (O-, E-, A-)Anxious, suspicious, obsessive5,6,15
(N+)Self-controlled7,8,9,12,13,14 (C+)Restrained, inhibited7,8,9,22
(O-, C+, E-)Concerned with rules, norms7,8,9
(C+)Moralistic9,15,18,28 (O-, C+)Simple, decisive19,20,21 (O-,
C+)Closed-minded20,21 (O-)Conscientious25,26,27 (C+)
Sources: 1Jaensch (1938); 2Adorno et al. (1950); 3Brown (1965);
4Freud (1959/1991); 5Fromm(1947); 6Kline & Cooper (1984);
7Maccoby (1968); 8Bem (1970); 9Tomkins (1963); 10Levin &Schalmo
(1974); 11Feather (1984); 12Milbrath (1962); 13St. Angelo &
Dyson (1968); 14Constantini &Craik (1980); 15Wilson (1973);
16Tetlock (1983, 1984); 17Sidanius (1985); 18Altemeyer (1998);19Van
Hiel, Pandelaere, & Duriez (2004); 20Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski,
& Sulloway (2003a, 2003b);21Kruglanski (2005); 22Block &
Block (2006); 23McCrae (1996); 24Barnea & Schwartz
(1998);25Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann (2003); 26Caprara,
Barbaranelli, & Zimbardo (1999); 27Rentfrow,Jost, Gosling,
& Potter (2009); 28Haidt & Hersh (2001)Note. O = Openness
to Experience; C = Conscientiousness; E = Extraversion;A =
Agreeableness; N = Neuroticism; + = High; = Low
816 Carney et al.
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According to Jost et al. (2003a, 2003b), political conservatism
is anideological belief system that consists of two core
components, resistanceto change and opposition to equality, which
serve to reduce uncertaintyand threat. The idea is that there is an
especially good fit between needsto reduce uncertainty and threat,
on one hand, and resistance to changeand acceptance of inequality,
on the other, insofar as preserving the statusquo allows one to
maintain what is familiar and known while rejecting therisky,
uncertain prospect of social change. The broader argument is
thatideological differences between right and left have
psychological roots:stability and hierarchy generally provide
reassurance and structure,whereas change and equality imply greater
chaos and unpredictability.(Jost et al., 2007, p. 990, emphasis
added)
The general idea is that there is an underlying match or
resonance betweengeneral psychological characteristics and the
specific contents of ideologicalbeliefs and opinions. In this
sense, the liberal preference for social change andequality both
reflects and reinforces motivational needs for openness,
creativity,novelty, and rebelliousness, whereas the conservative
preference for social stabil-ity and hierarchy both reflects and
reinforces the opposing motivational pulltoward order, structure,
obedience, and duty (see also Jost, 2006).
Although direct attempts to understand personality differences
between lib-erals and conservatives in terms of Big Five dimensions
have been rare (e.g., seeCaprara, Barbaranelli, & Zimbardo,
1999), several Big Five studies have includedmeasures of political
orientation. The largely serendipitous results derived fromthese
studies are generally consistent with expectations gleaned from
Table 1. Byfar the most consistent finding is that liberals tend to
score higher than conserva-tives on self-report measures of
Openness to New Experiences (e.g., Barnea &Schwartz, 1998;
Ekehammar, Akrami, & Gylje, 2004; Gosling, Rentfrow,
&Swann, 2003; Jost et al., 2003a, 2007; McCrae, 1996; Riemann,
Grubich, Hempel,Mergl, & Richter, 1993; Sidanius, 1978;
Stenner, 2005; Trapnell, 1994; Van Hiel& Mervielde, 2004).
There is also some evidence that conservatives tend to
scoreslightly higher than liberals on Conscientiousness (Caprara et
al., 1999; Ekeham-mar et al., 2004; Gosling et al., 2003; Jost,
2006; Mehrabian, 1996; Van Hiel,Mervielde, & De Fruyt, 2004).
Stenner (2005) argued that Conscientiousness,which is primarily
associated with rigidity, orderliness, and a compulsion aboutbeing
in control of ones environment . . . promotes conservatism to a
considerabledegree (p. 172). There is no consistent evidence in the
research literature thatNeuroticism, Extroversion, or Agreeableness
are reliably correlated with politicalorientation, although some
theorists have proposed differences between liberalsand
conservatives on traits related to these dimensions (see Table
1).
In our first study we sought to determine definitively whether
the two dimen-sions of Openness and Conscientiousness would
adequately capture personalitytrait differences between liberals
and conservatives, at least in the context of the
817Liberals and Conservatives
-
United States. We therefore examined correlations between scores
on Big Fivedimensions and liberalism-conservatism in six different
samples. At the same time,we wanted to be sure that any personality
differences were genuine and notmerely the result of divergent
self-presentational strategies adopted by liberals
andconservatives. This was especially important given that many of
the theories wehave reviewed predict differences that would emerge
only in private, nonreactivesettings (e.g., cleanliness,
expressiveness, and organization) or in the context ofinterpersonal
interaction (e.g., stubbornness, enthusiasm, and withdrawal).
There-fore, we went well beyond traditional self-report methods of
personality assess-ment in Study 1 to explore more subtle,
unobtrusive differences (e.g., Webb,Campbell, Schwartz, Sechrest,
& Grove, 1981) with respect to nonverbal behaviorand social
interaction styles (Study 2) and identity claims and behavioral
residuein living and working spaces (Study 3). Taken as a whole,
these studies provide themost sustained and comprehensive
investigation of personality differences under-lying political
orientation to date.
Study 1: Personality Differences between Liberals and
Conservatives
The goal of Study 1 was to obtain general personality profiles
of liberals andconservatives to assess the accuracy of the
theoretical speculations adumbrated inTable 1. It was hypothesized
that, based on prior theory and research, liberalswould score
higher than conservatives on Openness to New Experiences,
whereasconservatives would score higher than liberals on
Conscientiousness. No consistentdifferences between liberals and
conservatives on the three other Big Five dimen-sions
(Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism) were expected.
Personalityprofiles were gathered in six different American samples
(total N = 19,784) byusing individuals scores on each of the Big
Five personality dimensions to predicttheir political orientation.
In this and in subsequent studies, political orientationwas
assessed using self-report items, as is customary in the political
scienceliterature (e.g., Knight, 1999). Although very short
measures can be subject topsychometric limitations, in many cases
they are effective for assessing constructsthat are well understood
by laypeople (e.g., Burisch, 1997; Gosling et al., 2003).The single
item measure of liberalism-conservatism, which was administered
toSamples 15, has been found in previous research to demonstrate
good test-retestreliability and predictive validity (e.g., see
Fuchs & Klingemann, 1990; Jost, 2006;Knight, 1999). Sample 6
completed three items, including separate measures ofsocial and
economic dimensions of ideology to investigate the possibility
thatpersonality exerts stronger effects on social (vs. economic)
attitudes.
Method and Procedure
Samples 14. The first four samples (Ns = 85, 79, 155, and 1826)
wererecruited from the University of Texas at Austin. Sixty-four
percent of the
818 Carney et al.
-
participants (across samples) were female. Racial/ethnic group
identification wasas follows: 60% European American, 23% Asian
American, and 12% Latino; theremaining 5% were of other
ethnicities. Sample 1 completed the NEO-PI-R (Costa& McCrae,
1985), which contains 240 items that are answered on a scale
rangingfrom 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Samples 24
completed the44-item Big Five Inventory (BFI; John, Donahue, &
Kentle, 1991) using either a1 (disagree strongly) to 7 (agree
strongly) (Samples 2 and 4) or 1 to 5 (Sample 3)scale.
Reliability was acceptable for all five factors and all four
samples: Openness(a = .90 for Sample 1, .77 for Sample 2, .76 for
Sample 3, and .79 for Sample 4),Conscientiousness (a = .92, .76,
.78, .77), Extraversion (a = .90, .89, .86, .87),Agreeableness (a =
.89, .79, .82, .77), and Neuroticism (a = .92, .85, .79,
.77).Participants indicated their political orientation on a scale
ranging from 1 (liberal)to 9 (conservative) for Sample 1 (M = 5.02,
SD = 2.30) and for Sample 4(M = 4.95, SD = 2.23). For Sample 2, the
scale ranged from 1 (liberal) to 7(conservative), M = 4.29, SD =
1.88, and for Sample 3 it ranged from 1 (liberal) to5
(conservative), M = 3.17, SD = 1.15.
Sample 5. Participants in Sample 5 were similar in terms of age
and educa-tional experience, but they constituted a larger and far
more representative group.They were part of the Gosling-Potter
Internet Personality Project and wererecruited with the use of a
noncommercial, advertisement-free website throughone of several
channels: (1) major search engines (in response to keywords such
aspersonality tests), (2) portal sites, such as Yahoo! (under
directories of person-ality tests), (3) voluntary mailing lists
that participants had previously joined, and(4) word-of-mouth from
other visitors. We analyzed data from 17,103 Ameri-can,
college-attending participants between the ages of 18 and 25 years
old whovisited the website between March 2001 and May 2004. In
terms of demographiccharacteristics, 68% of the sample was female,
72% identified themselves asEuropean American, 8% as Asian
American, 7% as African American, 7% asLatino, and 1% as Native
American; the remaining 5% declined to prove racial/ethnic
information about themselves.
Upon arrival at the website, participants opted to take a
personality test. Theycompleted the same 44-item BFI used in
Samples 24. Scale means, standarddeviations, reliabilities, and
intercorrelations were consistent with those typicallyobtained in
laboratory studies (e.g., John et al., 1991). Participants were
also askedhow politically conservative-liberal are you? They
responded using a scaleranging from 1 (extremely liberal) to 5
(extremely conservative), M = 2.94,SD = 1.40. Internal consistency
for each of the Big Five constructs was adequate:Openness (a =
.80), Conscientiousness (a = .81), Extraversion (a = .86),
Agree-ableness (a = .81), and Neuroticism (a = .83).
Sample 6. Five hundred and thirty-six participants were
recruited from theUniversity of Texas at Austin as part of a course
requirement. Sixty-nine percentof the participants were female. Of
the 97% respondents who reported race, 54%
819Liberals and Conservatives
-
were European American, 5% were African American, 20% Asian
American, and15% Latino; the remaining 6% were of other
ethnicities. Sample 6 completed theTen Item Personality Inventory
(TIPI; Gosling et al., 2003), which contains 10items (two tapping
each of the Big 5 constructs). Items were answered on a
scaleranging from 1 (disagree strongly) to 7 (agree strongly).
Because each subscale ofthe TIPI consists of only two items,
Cronbachs alphas were not computed.However, as reported in Gosling
et al. (2003), the TIPI is a reliable and validmeasure of
personality.
To gauge political orientation as well as its independent social
and economicdimensions, participants responded to the following
three questions on scalesranging from 1 (extremely liberal) to 5
(extremely conservative): (1) Overall,where would you place
yourself, on the following scale of liberalism-conservatism? (M =
3.01, SD = 1.01); (2) In terms of social and cultural issues(e.g.,
abortion, separation of church and state, affirmative action),
where wouldyou place yourself on the following scale? (M = 2.91, SD
= 1.28); and (3) Interms of economic issues (e.g., taxation,
welfare, privatization of social security),where would you place
yourself on the following scale? (M = 3.19, SD = 1.04).Because of
widespread interest in differences (as well as similarities)
betweensocial and economic dimensions of political orientation
(e.g., Duckitt, 2001), wereport the data separately for each of
these three items and also for the compositemeasure (a = .83).3
Results
For each of the six samples we conducted a simultaneous
regression analysisin which each of the scores on the five
personality factors were used to predictparticipants political
orientation. This method enabled us to estimate the statisti-cally
unique contribution of each of the five personality dimensions,
adjusting forthe effects of the other four. Unique effects are
reported as unstandardizedregression coefficients (b) along with
their standard errors (SE). Prior to analysis,all variables were
transformed to range from 0 to 1 so that the
unstandardizedregression coefficients would be directly comparable
and easily interpretable (seeCohen, Cohen, Aiken, & West,
1999). Table 2 summarizes the results of theseanalyses.
Samples 14. The same multiple regression model was used in
Samples 14.With regard to Sample 1, the five personality factors
were significant predictors ofpolitical orientation, R = .46, F (5,
84) = 4.25, p < .01, and accounted for 21% ofthe variance. The
only significant unique predictor of political orientation
wasOpenness (b = -1.03, SE = .26, b = -.40, t [79] = -3.90, p <
.001; see Table 2).
3 Scores on the overall liberalism-conservatism item were
robustly correlated with the individual itemstapping social (r =
.74, p < .001) and economic (r = .63, p < .001) attitudes.
The latter two items weremore modestly but significantly
intercorrelated (r = .32, p < .001).
820 Carney et al.
-
Tabl
e2.
Rel
atio
nsbe
twee
nB
igFi
vePe
rson
ality
Dim
ensi
ons
and
Polit
ical
Ori
enta
tion
(Stu
dy1)
.
Sam
ple
NPe
rson
ality
Inst
rum
ent
Polit
ical
Mea
sure
Rel
atio
nw
ithlib
eral
ism
-con
serv
atis
m
OC
EA
N
Sam
ple
185
NE
O-P
I-R
Ideo
logi
cal
self
-pla
cem
ent
-1.0
3***
(.26
).1
4(.
28)
.29
(.28
).1
2(.
29)
-.18
(.25
)Sa
mpl
e2
79B
FIId
eolo
gica
lse
lf-p
lace
men
t-.
13+
(.21
).3
1(.
25)
.13
(.18
)-.
03(.
23)
-.01
(.21
)Sa
mpl
e3
155
BFI
Ideo
logi
cal
self
-pla
cem
ent
-.66
***
(.16
)-.
04(.
16)
.04
(.12
).2
5(.
15)
.05
(.12
)Sa
mpl
e4
1,82
6B
FIId
eolo
gica
lse
lf-p
lace
men
t-.
43**
*(.
05)
.11*
(.05
)-.
02(.
04)
.12*
*(.
05)
-.13
***
(.04
)Sa
mpl
e5
17,1
03B
FIId
eolo
gica
lse
lf-p
lace
men
t-.
52**
*(.
02)
.15*
**(.
02)
.02
(.01
).0
5**
(.02
)-.
03*
(.01
)Sa
mpl
e6
536
TIP
IC
ompo
site
mea
sure
(3ite
ms)
-.24
**(.
09)
.18*
(.07
).2
0**
(.07
).0
8(.
09)
.11+
(.07
)
Not
e.E
ntri
esar
eun
stan
dard
ized
regr
essi
onco
effic
ient
s(b
)fr
omm
ultip
lere
gres
sion
sin
whi
chea
chof
the
Big
Five
scor
esw
ere
ente
red
assi
mul
tane
ous
pred
icto
rs(w
ithst
anda
rder
rors
liste
din
pare
nthe
ses)
.Pri
orto
anal
ysis
,all
vari
able
sw
ere
tran
sfor
med
toa
0to
1sc
ale
byan
chor
ing
all
vari
able
sat
zero
and
divi
ding
each
scal
eby
itsm
axim
umpo
ssib
leva
lue.
Pers
onal
ityin
stru
men
ts(
BFI
,N
EO
-PI-
R,
and
TIP
I)
are
desc
ribe
din
the
Met
hods
sect
ion
for
Stud
y1.
O
=O
penn
ess
toN
ewE
xper
ienc
es;
C
=C
onsc
ient
ious
ness
;E
=
Ext
rave
rsio
n;A
=
Agr
eeab
lene
ss;
and
N
=N
euro
ticis
m.
+ p