The deliberative type? The role of personality traits in experiences of public deliberation

Deliberative democracy views discussion between lay citizens as a key component of a well-functioning democracy. However, previous studies suggest that variations in personality may have bearing on how people experience social interaction and respond to various stimuli. We contend that attention to personality might contribute to a better understanding of how people view and experience taking part in deliberative discussions. Our assumption is that certain personalities are better suited for deliberation than others are. This paper thus explores the relevance of the Big-Five personality traits in relation to public deliberation. It is thus expected, that personality traits might be relevant factors in explaining how participants in deliberative mini-publics, where social interaction is a central aspect, perceive the deliberation and how they are affected by it. The study is based on data from a Finnish experiment in citizen deliberation in 2014 (N=187) about the status of the Swedish minority language in Finland. We explore how personality traits as independent variables affect citizens’ preferences for taking part in deliberation as well as their subjective experience of the deliberation—i.e. how they regard their own role in the deliberation as well as how the view the group dynamic—when taking part themselves. Early tentative findings suggest that personality does have some bearing on the dependent variables.