Altruism at the ballots: Predicting political attitudes and behavior

The role of stable individual differences for political ideologies is quite undisputed. Herein, we add texture to the recent finding that dispositional altruism plays a noteworthy role for political orientation. More precisely, besides aiming to replicate this link, we assumed that altruism also influences hypothetical and actual voting behavior as well as endorsement of specific, currently debated political agendas. In a study which comprised two times of measurement prior to and after a nation-wide election in Germany, support for these hypotheses was obtained. Indeed, dispositional altruism was shown to consistently predict both attitudinal and behavioral criteria in the realm of politics.