Personality traits and location are linked to political ideology, according to a new study by Northwestern University. The research is the first to show that the connection between personality and political preference changes depending on where someone lives.
The study analyzed data from more than 150,000 individuals across 8,700 zip code areas in the United States. This data was collected through questionnaires from the SAPA Project, a database developed at Northwestern’s Personality, Motivation and Cognition Laboratory.
Researchers examined five major personality traits: extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness, and conscientiousness. They found that people with high levels of agreeableness—those who are compassionate and cooperative—and extraversion—those who are sociable—were more likely to share the political beliefs common in their local communities.
“Individuals showing personality traits associated with high motivation to get along and get ahead in social environments are more likely to be conservative if they live in a more conservative community and more liberal if they live in a liberal community,” said Kayla Garner, Ph.D. student at Northwestern and corresponding author of the study. William Revelle, psychology professor at Northwestern and faculty director of the lab where the SAPA Project is based, is senior author of the study.
The researchers noted that while there were some correlations between other traits like conscientiousness and political environment, the most significant findings were about how agreeableness and extraversion related differently to conservatism depending on whether an area was politically conservative or liberal.
For instance, higher agreeableness correlated with higher conservatism in conservative places but with lower conservatism in liberal places. The same pattern was seen for extraversion.
The results suggest that studies which do not consider local social environments may find inconsistent relationships between personality traits and political beliefs. These insights could help policymakers understand why ideological differences occur across regions—and why polarization can increase.
“If individuals higher in those ‘getting along’ personality traits are living in an area with a certain kind of belief, our study shows this influence may compound on itself because it aids people to get along and get ahead,” Garner said.
“These findings demonstrate the importance and complexity of individual differences in personality, particularly the importance of large-scale studies across geographical regions,” Revelle said. “Unfortunately, the tendency to get along can lead to divisiveness and polarization across groups.”
Garner added: “It reminds us that people are trying to make the best of their environments, and get along the best they can. For individuals higher on certain personality traits, their political ideology may occur in large part due to what believing in something does for individuals’ ‘fitting in,’ ‘getting along’ and ‘getting ahead’ in their local communities.”
The study titled “Context specific personality associations with political ideology are shaped by geographical variation” was recently published in Nature Scientific Reports.