Does personality matter? Openness correlates with vote choice, but particularly for politically sophisticated voters

Though psychologists show that personality predicts socio-political attitudes, political scientists caution that most voters are incapable of such disciplined voting. We integrate these competing traditions by arguing that personality correlates with vote choice, but primarily among the politically sophisticated. Utilising two nationally-representative datasets (Study 1: n = 6518; Study 2: n = 17434) from two countries (New Zealand and the United States, respectively), we show that Openness to Experience is inversely associated with conservative vote choice (Studies 1–2) and socio-political attitudes (Study 2). As predicted, these relationships were particularly robust among the politically sophisticated. These studies provide a much-needed qualification to the literature and demonstrate the benefits of using an interdisciplinary approach when examining the personality correlates of socio-political attitudes.

► We examine the Big-Five personality correlates of conservatism in two nations. ► Political sophistication moderates the Openness and conservatism correlation. ► Openness predicts conservatism, especially for the politically sophisticated. ► These results were consistent across two nations and two measures of personality. ► This provides an important qualification to the personality literature.