Exploring the Intersection of Personality Traits and Populist Attitudes: A Comparative Examination of Right-wing and Left-wing Populist Party Supporters

In recent years, Europe has seen a surge in populism, leading to a demand for understanding it both from the point of supply and demand. While the supply-side of populism has been extensively studied, we still have limited knowledge about the characteristics of individuals who hold populist views. Populists often understand politics as a Manichean struggle between the will of the common people and an evil, conspiring elite. These ideas are expressed in the rhetoric and behaviour of populist leaders and supporters and have an impact on elected officials’ behaviour as well as the resultant policies. Scholars such as Hawkins and Rovira Kaltwasser (2019) suggest that populist ideas activate populist attitudes by providing the context and framing to individual citizens, while rejecting the argument that personality traits can influence and activate populist attitudes. Furthermore, they argue that populist attitudes cannot relate to personality traits. Given Hawkins and Rovira Kaltwasser’s reasoning, populist ideas and personality traits seem to compete over which of the two mobilise populist attitudes. However, certain studies propose that an individual's personality traits have a direct or indirect correlation with support for populism (e.g., Aichholzer and Zandonella 2016; Bakker et al. 2016; Van Assche et al. 2018, Caprara and Zimbardo 2004; Fatke 2019), subsequently influencing populist voting intentions (e.g., Akkerman et al. 2014; Van Hauwaert and Van Kessel 2018). Scholars studying the influence of personality on populist voting argue that a populist personality – if there is such a personality – predisposes voters towards supporting such parties. Such a personality is composed of a combination of deeply held personality traits and characteristic adaptations (i.e., populist attitudes) that together affect political behaviour (Kenny and Bizumic 2020). To develop comprehension, it's crucial to discuss how personality traits might connect with populist attitudes amongst individuals. Drawing from the literature linking personality traits with political attitudes and behaviour (Gerber et al. 2010, 2011), researchers have adopted certain structural taxonomies of personality such as the 'Big Five' model from the field of personality psychology to understand populism better. These structures have been employed to either anticipate the populist vote or explain the psychological basis for individuals with populist attitudes (Kenny and Bizumic 2020). Based on research by Bakker et al. (2016), voting for a populist party or candidate is rooted in psychology. However, the relation between the personality traits and populist attitudes or the inclination towards supporting populist parties and/or leaders has not been adequately examined. This paper intends to shed further light on this issue by studying the correlation between personality traits and populist attitudes. We aim to answer the following research questions: Are there common personality characteristics among voters who have populist attitudes? Do voters who support a right-wing populist party have different personality characteristics than those supporting a left-wing populist party? To answer these questions, we will study individuals’ views on issues related to populism, their opinions on immigrants, minority rights, social liberalism etc. as well as survey items related to personality traits, voting intention, and voting records.