Recently, political participation has become a significant component of peoples’ interests, drawing the attention of scientists in particular. Politics is typically influenced by a variety of variables, including sociocultural and regional context, economic factors, demography markers, racial markers, and many others. In the examination of political attitudes, personality qualities are becoming increasingly significant. Furthermore, when studying the variables that influence political attitudes, it is vital to assess the component of intelligence. In this sense, political attitudes are influenced by intrinsic factors, such as the level of intelligence and personality traits, implying that the stance of a more intelligent individual with specific characteristics from the Big Five personality traits differs from the stance of the individual with polar features.
The Influence of Personality on Political Attitudes
Aspects of individual variances in inclinations to reveal persistent thoughts and behaviors are how personality characteristics are characterized. Numerous research conducted in the field of politics presently shows that character has an immediate, substantial impact on political attitude (Jost et al., 2018). These studies cover a wide range of topics, such as political viewpoint, party affiliation, political efficiency, political debate, vote preference, vote participation, and non-electoral political engagement (Kleppestø et al., 2019). The use of military involvement in international policy, emigration, and views toward power structures like representative democracy in Switzerland are just a few examples of the political matters that people’s personalities can have a direct or moderate impact on.
Over the past ten years, scientists have used the evidential support of character to determine political inclinations, probably more than any other feature. The genetically motivated, complex, and enduring inner psychological structure that directs a person’s ideas, beliefs, and behaviors are reflected in personality (Fatke, 2017). The Big Five personality paradigm, which encompasses the traits of openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability, has become the accepted theory (Ksiazkiewicz and Friesen, 2021). Political conservatism has repeatedly been proven to be correlated with openness and conscientiousness (Ksiazkiewicz and Friesen, 2021). Quantifiable metrics of religiosity have also been connected to these characteristics.
The study conducted by Ha (2019) supports the idea that the Big Five personality traits should be used in order to measure the correlation between personality and political attitudes. In this sense, Ha (2019) claims that trust in leadership, belief in authority, and cultural unity influence public support after adjusting for a number of sociodemographic factors. Since agreeableness typically correlates with increased levels of governmental support, this effect is particularly noteworthy (Ha, 2019). Two key aspects of agreeability, trust, and obedience, which are triggered in demonstrating public support for political systems, may be the cause of such a strong link (Ha, 2019). Other character features may also occasionally seem to be linked to political support. Although it is challenging to provide theoretically sound reasoning in this context, interpretation of these results is feasible (e.g., the effect of the political atmosphere on the link between extraversion and cultural unity).
Furthermore, studies have shown how personality characteristics affect various forms of political involvement. The study by Ivanchenko et al. (2019) identified the key patterns for traditional versus non-traditional involvement, despite the fact that the research conclusions are sometimes contradictory or contain some non-significant results. Most studies have found a strong correlation between Extraversion and both traditional and unconventional political participation (Ivanchenko et al., 2019). When people feel that their viewpoint is being acknowledged, conscientiousness has a significant negative association with non-conventional involvement and a positive relationship with conventional participation (Ivanchenko et al., 2019). Openness produces strong positive relationships with unconventional activism, but to a lesser extent with traditional activism.
On the other hand, the finding from the evaluation of personality characteristics in the Brazilian setting was that people who scored highly on extraversion and openness to experience look for more political knowledge before deciding to participate in protest activity. Still, individuals with a trait such as openness to experience are more likely to be classified as liberal on a binary political spectrum. Phillips (2021) claims that people who exhibit high levels of openness to experience are more inclined to react positively to liberal social policies, which frequently implies accepting unorthodox actions and liberal economic policies. This may even encompass a willingness to endorse propositions that entail new government participation in the economy (Phillips, 2021). As a result, openness to experience is linked to favorable reactions to novel stimuli (Phillips, 2021). It would appear that the personality functions as a kind of foundation for the growth of appropriate political cognitive abilities.
Another Big Five personality trait, neuroticism, also known as psychological instability, is a character trait affiliated with strongly correlated negative feelings like nervousness, frustration, despair, anxiousness, worry, animosity, and self-consciousness. It is also linked to instability in the context of controlling changes in mood, generally in a negative way, like annoyance (Phillips, 2021). The likelihood that an individual will be a liberal increase with their level of neuroticism (Phillips, 2021). According to the study by Phillips (2021), emotional stability has a positive inverse relationship with conservatism, meaning that the more neurotic a person is, the less likely they are to be a conservative.
Nevertheless, there is a number of studies that disprove the correlation between personality traits and political viewpoints yet support particular points. For instance, when looking more closely at the observations, the researchers GrĂĽnhage and Reuter (2020) found that conscientiousness and a more conservative political orientation, in addition to openness and agreeableness and a more liberal political affiliation, were naturally inherent in a German population. However, the results and a number of earlier studies imply that a broad left or right inclination is at least somewhat rooted in personality and does influence one’s views (GrĂĽnhage and Reuter, 2020). This usually refers to concrete problems like a general speed limit on roads or distribution of income.
Furthermore, another study reveals that character qualities are not strongly related to individual voting choices and demonstration participation in Taiwan, in opposition to research on other nations. Nevertheless, personality characteristics operate as a regulator for the influence of attitude elements on protests and political engagement (Wang et al., 2019). Political interest particularly mediates the influence of extraversion, agreeability, and conscientiousness on involvement in protests as well as voter turnout, and the intensity of affiliation also mediates the impacts of extraversion and agreeability on voter turnout (Wang et al., 2019). These results imply that, contrary to other nations, political efficacy does not mediate the connections between character traits and political involvement in Taiwan.
Still, major theories of personality prove the correlation between personality traits and preferences. For instance, the trait perspective on personality theory takes into account both an individual’s attitude and the variety of characteristics they possess (Lester, 2019). As a result, this proves that a certain set of traits leads to the establishment of specific ideas, beliefs, and behaviors. Moreover, the Big Five personality traits are a proposed classification, or categorization, for character qualities that were created in psychological trait theory at the beginning of the 1980s (Lester, 2019). Consequently, with the help of numerous studies, it was proven that while it is possible for individuals to shift toward polar perceptions, their attitudes are still most affected by personality traits.
The Influence of Intelligence on Political Attitudes
While political beliefs are correlated to personality traits, such views can also be determined by the level of intelligence. An interconnected set of sentiments and ideals concerning the correct purposes of society and how they ought to be attained is how political stance has been described (Jedinger and Burger, 2021). Indeed, there is scientific support for the idea that there is a connection between political beliefs and cognitive aptitude (Ashton, 2022). Particularly, the majority of studies show a connection between conservative political views and low cognitive capacities.
It was argued that conservative socioeconomic beliefs are associated with lesser intellect and inflexible data processing techniques, which are related to mental tendencies and—more specifically—cognitive skills. A relatively broad information-processing capability that supports reasoning, problem-solving, decision-making, and other higher-order thinking abilities is what intellectual function and intellect are both used to describe (Tappin et al., 2021). Results on tests of particular cognitive capabilities, such as linguistic, numerical, geographical, or creative thinking, are positively connected with one another (Jedinger and Burger, 2021). This implies that the lower the abilities of individuals in such categories, the more conservative is their stance.
It is noteworthy that learning ability, which relates to personal characteristics in favored and recurring modes of information seeking and data processing, is theoretically and empirically differentiated from mental skills and intelligence. Yet, personal variations in cognitive approach, rather than differences in cognitive capabilities, have drawn more attention in studies on the psychological foundations of political views (Jedinger and Burger, 2021). Furthermore, despite the increased attention paid to learning ability in research, the study of how cognitive ability affects social and political beliefs has expanded in recent years.
Additionally, the connection between intelligence and political choices was emphasized in other studies. In the majority of investigations, connections between intellect and liberal attitudes were found to be favorable (Ganzach, 2018). Studies analyzed by Ganzach (2018) have shown, for instance, that people with higher IQs are less likely to hold radical political views; they are also more likely to identify with the English Liberal Party. Lastly, it was claimed that intellect is adversely connected with conservatism (Choma and Hanoch, 2017). Other research has used assessments that could be seen as indicators of intellect (Bell et al., 2020). Such tests included the cognitive reflection examination, the urge for knowledge, or openness to experience, and has generally found a positive correlation between these tests and liberal political views in the world.
Aside from the high level of intellect among liberals, the existing research contends that more highly educated people have more reasonable political viewpoints. This is due to their political preferences being in accordance with their political attitudes, which may be used as an indication of reasonableness (Ganzach, 2018). This influence was discovered in three sizable relevant databases using a variety of cognitive tests, political attitudes tests, and periods (Ganzach, 2018). The more intellectuals are more educated and the richer, but neither of these factors can account for this effect.
Another study by Ganzach looks into intolerance of political groups, which is defined as the animosity of liberals’ and conservatives’ views toward their respective outgroup members. Researchers demonstrate that conservatives are less tolerant of opposing ideologies than liberals are and that educated people are less tolerant of opposing ideologies than less intelligent people (Ganzach and Schul, 2021). Researchers also demonstrate how political extremism influences the disparities between liberals and conservatives as well as the more and less intelligent (Ganzach and Schul, 2021). As a result, these differences are greater for extremists than for neutral ideologists. According to other researchers, high intellectual function offers individuals more mental skills, making them best equipped to argue about and defend their political viewpoint (Leary et al., 2017). Thus, intellectual function affects ideological hostility since people with higher cognitive abilities are likely to have more sophisticated political views than people with lower cognitive abilities (Porter and Schumann, 2018). As an outcome, they are more inclined to rely on their ideologies when establishing perceptions toward the political group, highlighting the differences.
When it comes to the psychological theories of intelligence, there is one that might explain the correlation between political preferences and intellect. According to a theory on the evolution of general intelligence, more intelligent people are more likely to adopt and support non-traditional and innovative attitudes and standards than less intelligent people (Burkart et al., 2017). Among the most accepted views by educated and intelligent individuals are liberalism, atheism, and non-traditional sexual orientation (Burkart et al., 2017). Yet, the average intellectual ability may not have any impact on the adoption and support of the new beliefs.
Conclusion
The degree of intelligence and personality traits are fundamental elements that affect political beliefs, suggesting that the position of a more intelligent person with particular Big Five personality trait characteristics varies from the stance of a person with polar attributes. The trait perspective on personality theory considers a person’s attitude as well as their range of features. This demonstrates how a particular set of qualities can result in the development of specific thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors. A general intelligence theory states that more intelligent people are more prone to adopt and support unconventional and progressive norms than less clever individuals.
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