Year: 2016
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Research has consistently found that political liberalism is predicted by the Big Five trait Openness to Experience, while political conservatism is predicted by trait Conscientiousness. The majority of the research thus far, however, has adopted a trait-level model of personality. Recent work suggests that each of the Big Five traits can be divided into two distinct aspects, which offer further nuanced characterizations of each trait, and provide more independent predictive powers than the traits do alone. Thus, analyzing personality predictors of political orientation at the aspect level can increase our understanding of the motivational mechanisms that underlie these associations. Specifically, this dissertation focuses on and demonstrates that when it comes to trait Conscientiousness, it is only one of its two aspects (i.e., Orderliness) that consistently predicts political conservatism. Study 1 used a large sample to provide robust evidence suggesting that, when the Big Ten aspects are entered simultaneously to predict political orientation, Orderliness, but not Industriousness (the other aspect of trait Conscientiousness), predicted political conservatism. Study 2 examined how Orderliness is related to other dispositional factors relevant to political orientation, specifically disgust sensitivity. The results found that Orderliness mediated the association between disgust sensitivity and political conservatism, and that this effect was especially relevant for Contamination/Pathogen disgust. Studies 3 and 4 investigated potential mechanisms that underlie the link between Orderliness and conservatism, such as preference for meaning and convention. Study 3 found that preference for meaningful stimuli, as well as dislike towards surreal stimuli, mediated the link between Orderliness and conservatism. In Study 4, results showed that increased preference for conventional and traditional media, as well as dislike towards complex and unconventional media, mediated the link between Orderliness and political orientation. Taken together, these studies offer initial insights into how examining personality at the aspect level may provide more comprehensive understanding into the psychological processes behind political orientation.
Source: TSpace (University of Toronto)
Author: Xu, Xiaowen
Institution: University of Toronto
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2769216735