A new Social Psychological and Personality Science study published Thursday found that “neurotic traits positively predicted” shares of voters who opted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election or to “leave” in the Brexit vote that same year.
According to University of Austin psychology professor Sam Gosling—one of the study’s co-authors—of the Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism), ”regions highest on neuroticism are particularly receptive to political campaigns that emphasize danger and loss and that previous campaigns have not tapped into these themes as strongly as we saw in 2016.”
The researchers them compared those traits with models previously used to predict voting behavior, namely openness and conscientious. As ZMEscience notes, “past studies have shown that low openness and high conscientiousness are good indicators of conservative political views.”
“The models traditionally used for predicting and explaining political behavior did not capture an […]
I am the most neurotic person I know and I still can spot a load of manure when I smell it. Really once trump leaves how will the country reconstitute itself? I still can’t talk to my sister knowing she’s a trump supporter.