1. Personality Traits, Political Ideology, and Candidate Preference in the Deep South.
- Author
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Mackey, Cameron D. and Dempsey, Heidi L.
- Subjects
- *
AUTHORITARIANISM , *POLARIZATION (Social sciences) , *RELIGIOUS fundamentalism & politics , *RIGHT & left (Political science) - Abstract
Previous studies have shown that disgust sensitivity (DS), right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), religious fundamentalism (RF), and belief in a just world (BJW) are associated with social conservatism and religious questioning (QUEST) is associated with social liberalism. The current study was designed determine whether these personality traits would predict who the student planned to vote for in the 2016 U.S. Presidential primary. Consistent with previous research, DS, RWA, RF, and BJW were positively correlated with social conservatism and QUEST was negatively correlated. Students who were highest on RWA, RF, and lowest on QUEST were most likely to vote for one of the Republican candidates. In contrast, students who were at the opposite end of the scales were most likely to vote for Bernie Sanders, with Hillary Clinton supporters in the middle. There were no differences in DS and few differences in BJW with regard to preferred candidate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2018