This study is looking at how the political affiliation and gender of an individual correlate with one of the big five personality traits; openness. We will be looking at Democratic men and Republican women separately. Then we will gauge where those individuals fit on a scale of openness in terms of their personality. Political affiliations usually correlate with certain viewpoints on big topics. For example, when it comes to the topic of abortion Democrats are usually pro-choice while Republicans are usually pro-life. Since political affiliations correlate with viewpoints on topics, political affiliations very well could also correlate with openness towards topics. An individual's gender does not necessarily correlate with certain viewpoints on certain topics in the way political affiliations correlate with viewpoints, but it is possible that an individual’s gender correlates with how they would score on a personality test that measures openness.
Openness is one of the five personality traits derived from the Big Five personality theory. It essentially indicates how open-minded someone is. In other words, openness is simply being open to new, foreign ideas. One would have a high level of openness if they were willing to discuss a topic that they are not familiar with, or a topic that makes them uncomfortable. One would have a low level of openness if they quickly dismissed ideas that were new to them. People who have a high level of openness are also often more creative when it comes to things like problem solving than those who do not have a high level of openness. People with a low level of openness are more likely to hold on to their viewpoints strongly while people with a high level of openness will be more ready to accept new ideas and come up with new creative ways to look at/deal with certain conflicts and problems. Individuals with a high level of openness are often more imaginative and more likely to try new things while individuals with a low level of openness are often more close-minded and enjoy routine over spontaneity. Openness is usually measured through a personality test that looks at whether or not an individual exhibits traits of openness. Depending on how many personality traits of openness an individual has, they will be placed somewhere on a scale that measures openness.
There are many subtraits that individuals with high levels of openness exhibit. These subtraits include how imaginative and creative an individual is, as well as how adventurous and openly emotional an individual is. Another big subtrait of individuals with high levels of openness is political liberalism or leftism (Hirsh, DeYoung, Xu, & Peterson, 2010). Democrats usually lean strongly to the left politically, so it would make sense that in general, Democrats are usually high in levels of openness.
While liberalism has been characterized by high levels of openness, conservatism has been characterized with quite the opposite (Hirsh, DeYoung, Xu, & Peterson, 2010). Individuals who are conservative are usually part of the Republican party because of their strong right political leanings, just as individuals who are liberal identify as Democrats due to their strong left political leanings. Those who have conservative viewpoints and identify as Republicans are often much less open to new things and are more likely to be resistant to change than those who have liberal viewpoints (Democrats). Therefore, if an individual has conservative viewpoints they are more likely to negatively correlate with the characteristics of an individual with high levels of openness. Since liberal viewpoints correlate positively with the personality trait of openness and conservative viewpoints correlate negatively with the personality trait of openness one can hypothesize that Democrats have higher levels of openness than Republicans do.
In this day and age, political involvement can take place in many forms. If you want to campaign for a certain candidate it no longer needs to be done only through mail, door to door campaigning, or flyers. In the 2016 election, there was a surge of online campaigning that took place in many forms. Some people started Youtube channels, blogs, and websites to campaign for their candidate of choice. Other people simply posted political comical images or “memes”. The people engaging in this sort of online political involvement were typically aged 16-21 and they were exposed to huge amounts of opinions that either aligned with their viewpoints, or didn’t (Kahne, J., Middaugh, E., Lee, N., & Feezell, J. T., 2011). The people who engaged in this sort of online political involvement typically had higher levels of openness of the Big Five scale than people who didn’t.
A 2012 study called “Online Political Engagement, Facebook and Personality Traits” done by Ellen Quintelier and Yannis Theocharis analyzed the characteristics of an individual who was highly likely to engage in offline political involvement compared to the characteristics of an individual who was highly likely to engage in online political involvement activities. It was thought that people with different personality traits would engage in different types of political involvement. It was found using the “Big Five” personality test that high levels of openness (to experience) would lead to an individual being more likely to engage in online political involvement (Quintelier, E., & Theocharis, Y., 2012). Openness was one of the only personality traits that had an effect on online political engagement. Individuals with higher levels of openness were more likely to be left leaning, or identify as part of the Democratic party (Hirsh, DeYoung, Xu, & Peterson, 2010).
I originally thought that there would be no association between gender and political affiliation. According to survey data that has been gathered over recent decades men and women differ between political viewpoints and even political affiliations (Pratto, Felicia, et al., 1997). According to the 1997 study done by Pratto, differences in political viewpoints and affiliations can be attributed to individual differences in Social Dominance Orientation. Social Dominance Orientation essentially is an individual's approval rating of social based hierarchies, that in this case, are sex based. Pratto’s 1997 study results were taken from a sample of United States college students (N=463) and a sample of 1992 United States voters (N=478). This sample found that males were in general more supportive of conservative viewpoints such as military programmes and stricter punitive policies, while females were in support of more liberal viewpoints such as social programmes and stricter laws when it comes to support of equal rights. This same study found that scores from the Social Dominance Orientation were good predictors of candidate choice for the 1992 election season, this is because of the way that the Social Dominance Orientation analyzes individuals feelings towards policy changes and political ideologies. This study by Felicia Pratto shows that there is a pattern between gender and political viewpoints (Pratto, Felicia, et al., 1997).
Evidence from studies shows that overall, the personality trait of openness does have an effect on political affiliation. Evidence from the 1997 study from Felicia Pratto states that there is a pattern between gender and political viewpoints. The study does not state outright that men or women have higher or lower levels of the personality trait openness, it does state however that men in 1992 were more likely to have strong conservative viewpoints than women (Pratto, Felicia, et al., 1997).
From what I have gathered from all the info above, an individual's political affiliation and gender can sometimes be determined by an individual's levels of openness. Left leaning individuals, or Democrats, typically have higher levels of openness to new ideas. Right leaning individuals, or Republicans, typically have lower levels of openness to new ideas (Hirsh, DeYoung, Xu, & Peterson, 2010). According to Pratto’s study, men are typically more likely to identify as conservative, or Republican. According to this evidence, it would be obvious that conservative/Republican men have lower levels of openness than liberal/Democratic women. This study will reveal which is a stronger indicator of openness: gender or political affiliation. This study will be looking at differences in levels of openness between Republican women, and Democratic men. There was more evidence available pertaining to how political affiliation is a strong predictor of openness than there was evidence pertaining to how gender is a predictor of openness. Because of this, I predict that Democratic men will be more open in personality than Republican women.