There is a strong relationship between a voter’s politics and his personality, according to new research from the University of Toronto.
Researchers at UofT have shown that the psychological concern for compassion and equality is associated with a liberal mindset, while the concern for order and respect of social norms is associated with a conservative mindset.
The study, which appears in this month’s Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, may even lend some legitimacy to the term, ‘bleeding-heart-liberal.’
Researchers asked more than 600 participants from Canada and the US to classify their politics as either small-L liberal or small-C conservative instead of identifying with a particular political party. They then administered a personality test to determine the participants’ personality traits and their relationship to political preferences.
Hirsh’s work contributes to accumulating evidence suggesting political behaviour is motivated by underlying psychological needs.
“We are beginning to understand the deeper motivations that are involved in determining an individual’s political leanings”, says Hirsh. “While everybody has the same basic motivational architecture, the relative strength of the underlying systems varies from one person to the next. If concerns for order and equality are relatively balanced, the individual is likely to be politically moderate; as either motive grows stronger than the other, political preferences move further to either end of the spectrum.”
“The fact that variability still exists in these motivational systems, from an evolutionary perspective, means that neither one is sufficient on its own. There are costs and benefits to each political profile and both appear critical to maintaining an effective balance in society.”
*Source: EurekAlert