Personality correlates of voting behavior

Pages: 121-123
Anupama Sihag (Department of Psychology G.M.N. College, Ambala Cantt, Haryana)

Personality and politics are at the nexus of research trends in India and abroad. Personality of voters and political leader has an influence on the voting behavior during elections. Behavioral scientist focusses on “why” of the behavior, i.e. why people vote the way they vote. Voters, during elections get influenced by various factors depending upon heir own personality type. Under the IMPRESS, ICSSR (MHRD) funded project “Psychological Correlates of Political Behavior”, this study was done on a sample of 900 respondents from the various constituencies of Haryana. There are two aspects that needs to be assessed between the personality and political behavior in terms of voting i.e. relationship and causation. A study focused on finding the personality correlates of political behavior is oriented more towards the causation. Harnessing the data from Neo-Five questionnaire and survey form, the causative relationship between the personality dimensions and voting behavior was analyzed. Binomial Regression results indicate that openness to experience, agreeableness, and conscientiousness added significantly with values p = .049, p = .0001 and p = .001 respectively. Whereas extraversion (p = .281), neuroticism (p = .289) did not add significantly. Results indicate that openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness significantly contributed towards voting behavior.