Beyond Openness to Experience and Conscientiousness: Testing links between lower-level personality traits and...

Research has consistently revealed positive correlations between political liberalism and Openness to Experience, and between conservatism and Conscientiousness. Most of this research has made use of domain-level models of the Big Five personality traits. Recent work suggests, however, that each Big Five trait domain can be divided into distinct aspects or facets, which offer more nuanced characterizations of each trait.

Across four studies (Ns ranging from 1,123 to 116,406), the present research examined the degree to which distinct lower-level traits would be associated with meaningful differences in political orientation. United States residents completed two different hierarchical Big Five personality measures (the Big Five Aspect Scales and the Big Five Inventory-2), as well as a range of measures of political orientation.

Across both personality measures, liberal political orientation showed distinct positive associations with the lower-level traits Openness/Aesthetic Sensitivity, Intellect/Intellectual Curiosity, Compassion, and Withdrawal/Depression, as well as distinct negative associations with Orderliness/Organization, Politeness, and Assertiveness.

By examining individual differences at a higher level of granularity, these data provide insight into specific motivations that predispose individuals toward different ends of the political spectrum.