Personality profiles and political parties

This paper explores relationships between basic personality profiles of vot ers and their political party preferences. The Italian political system has moved recently from previously extreme, ideologically distinctive parties to form complex coalitions varying around more centrist orientations Signif icant evidence was found for the utility of the Five-Factor Model of Person ality in distinguishing between voters' expressed preferences, even given t his greater subtlety in proposed values and agendas. Move than 2,000 Italia n voters who self-identified as having voted for new center-left or center- right political coalitions differed systematically in predicted directions on several personality dimensions measured by the Big Five Questionnaire. I n the context of the model, center-right voters displayed move Energy and s lightly more Conscientiousness than center-left voters, whose dominant pers onality characteristics were Agreeableness (Friendliness) and Openness; Emo tional Stability was unrelated to either group. This relationship between i ndividual differences in personality and political preferences was not infl uenced by the demographic variables of voters' gender, age, or education. T hus, personality dimensions proved to be stronger predictors of political p reference than any of these standard predictor variables. Implications are discussed regarding links among personality persuasion, power, and politics .