From Left to Right:
The layer-cake model of behavior
Timothy Bates & Gary Lewis
(British Journal of Psychology, 2011)
ISSID Maryland
“I can tell you all the properties of a metal bar:
Its dimensions, its conductivity, ductility, specific
heat, density, and strength… But if you ask me
has it been bent, I have to know whether you
drove over it in a truck or not”
H.J. Eysenck, ISSID, Baltimore, ML, 1993
Personality Systems Model
“There is as yet nothing like an adequate
taxonomy of processes, and creating such a
taxonomy should become a priority for
personality theorists”
McCrae and Costa (2006, p. 164)
What’s the matter with everyone
(else)?
• Why doesn’t everybody vote the same?
• Surely there’s a right answer?
• At least that’s how we often talk:
• “How can those people vote for Cameron’s
conservatives? It’s stupid!”
• “Little Davy Cameroon[sp]: Wrong again”
Individual differences in political
orientation
• Large individual differences in political behaviour
remain after controlling status, gender, and IQ
– Schoon, Cheng, Gale, Batty, & Deary, 2010
• Heritable component
– N. Martin et al., 1986;
– Alford, Funk, & Hibbing, 2005
• Causes of difference may be complex or indirect
– Gerber, Huber, Doherty, Dowling, & Ha, 2010;
– Mondak, Hibbing, Canache, Seligson, & Anderson, 2010.
Background: Personality correlates
• Openness most reliably associated with political orientation
– r ~ around .3 with liberal political attitudes
• Carney et al., 2008; McCrae, 1996;
• Trapnell, 1994; Van Hiel & Mervielde, 2004.
• Other traits mixed
– C: Modest relationships of conscientiousness to orientation
– Gosling, Rentfrow, & Swann, 2003; Mondak & Halperin, 2008)
• Other studies found no association (e.g. Alford & Hibbing, 2007).
– A, E, N: Modest effects
• e.g. Barbaranelli, Caprara, Vecchione, & Fraley, 2007
• More studies failed to find associations
– Alford & Hibbing, 2007; Carney et al., 2008; Mehrabian, 1996; Trapnell, 1994.
• Personality (other than O) is unrelated to political
orientation (Alford & Hibbing, 2007; McCrae, 1996).
System Model of Education
(Bates 2011)
Biological
Biological Capacities
Genes coding for
neuronal migration and
modularization.
(HOX; ROBO; SLIT
etc.
Psychological
Psychological
Adaptations
Semantic knowledge
Procedural knowledge
Behavior
Objective Biography
Exam Scores
Job Offers/income
Relationship Stability
Health
Patents
Auditory Lexicon...
Neurotransmitter
genes; (e.g. DRD2)
Grapheme-phoneme
conversion rules
Receptor genes
(e.g. G-coupled protein
receptors).
Gene Regulators (e.g.
miRNAs);
Evocative
effects
External Influences
Cultural Norms
Life Events
Parents
School
Teachers
Employers
Peers/friends
What is the middle layer for politics?
• Authoritarian personality?
• Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950
• Radicalism and tender-mindedness?
• Eysenck (1954)
• 5 Moral foundations
– Haidt (1997; 2011)
Haidt (2007; 2009; 2011)
Moral Foundations
• 5 moral facets nested under two moral domains
• Group: Valuing of order, authority, in-group
loyalty, and aspirations to a pure life.
– Authority;
– Purity;
– In-group loyalty
• Individualizing: Concerned for fairness and
ensuring that individuals are protected from
harm.
– Fairness;
– Harm
System Model for Politics
(Lewis & Bates, 2011)
Biological
Biological Capacities
Genes coding for
neuronal
modularization.
Neurotransmitter
genes; (e.g. DRD4; 5HTTP; )
Psychological
Psychological
Adaptations
Objective Biography
Who did you vote for?
Individualising
(harm; fairness)
Group
(Purity; Authority; ingroup )
Receptor genes
(e.g. OXT).
Gene Regulators (e.g.
miRNAs);
Behavior
Evocative
effects
External Influences
Cultural Norms
Life Events
Current Events
Marital Status
Children
Employers
Peers/friends
Study 1
• 447 subjects: UK undergrads
• Political orientation measure:
“How would you describe your political orientation?”
“Very liberal” 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 “Very conservative”.
– Widely used, reliable, valid
• Carney et al., 2008; Fuchs & Klingemann, 1990; Jost, 2006)
• NEO PI-R measure of personality
• Haidt MFQ
Three models tested
• M1: Personality  moral values political orientation
• Described the data well without modification
– RMSEA = .07, χ2 = 99.17 (df = 30, p <.001), CFI = .95
• Alternatives give poor fit as judged by all indices:
• M2: Moral values Personality  political orientation
– RMSEA = .10, χ2 = 107.80 (df = 31, p <.001), CFI = .91
• M3: Personality  political orientation, values
– RMSEA = .12, χ2 = 226.48 (df = 32, p <.01), CFI = .85
Study 1 Results
Countervailing facets of N
• Three facets of N significant for Individualizing
– Countervailing effects:
• Anxiety
β = .14
• Self-consciousness β = .17
Depression
β = – .16
RMSEA = .07, χ2 = 17.53 (df = 6, p < .01), CFI = .99
Study 1 Summary
• Individualising:
• Linked to Openness, Neuroticism, and
Agreeableness
• Binding
• Associated with O, N, and E
• Binding and individualizing accounted for
significant variance in political orientation.
– Direct relationship for O on politics
Does it replicate? (Study 2)
•
•
•
•
•
476 subjects
Different Country: US (not UK)
Different demography: Not student-based
Different Big Five inventory (Rammstedt & John, 2007),
Different (14–item) measure of politics:
– Internet pornography, sex education in public schools, banning
abortion and legalised gay marriage, allowing undocumented
immigrants to stay in the United States, higher taxes for the
wealthy, aggressive military response to dangerous foreign
groups, unemployment payments, gun control laws, offshore
drilling, and subsidised healthcare for the poor.
• 7-point Likert scales; Alpha =.82
Study 2 Results
What does this mean?
• Personality system model validated
• Values mediate links to political orientation.
Biological
Biological Capacities
Genes coding for
neuronal
modularization.
Neurotransmitter
genes; (e.g. DRD4; 5HTTP; )
Psychological
Psychological
Adaptations
Objective Biography
Who did you vote for?
Individualising
(harm; fairness)
Group
(Purity; Authority; ingroup )
Receptor genes
(e.g. OXT).
Gene Regulators (e.g.
miRNAs);
Behavior
Evocative
effects
External Influences
Cultural Norms
Life Events
Current Events
Marital Status
Children
Employers
Peers/friends
Moral values combined
• Predict political orientation
• Conservative orientation:
– Valuing order and hierarchy combined with a low
value on the treatment of individuals
• Liberal or left-orientation
– Low valuing of the group
– Strong emphasis on equity and protecting people
from harm
MFQ associations
• Individualizing (fairness and harm).
– Agreeableness, Neuroticism, and Openness.
• High binding (authority, loyalty, pure life)
– Extraversion, Conscientiousness, low-Openness
Countervailing Personality effects
• Neuroticism raises both individualizing and
binding.
– but individualizing and binding influence political
orientation in opposite directions.
• Failures to associate neuroticism with political
orientation in previous research may be due
to these influences effectively cancelling out
at the level of politic orientation.
Facets can countervail too
• Anxiety and self-consciousness both increase
individualizing
• Depression scores relate negatively to this
value.
• Wise to consider facet-level associations
alongside the more common domain-level
relations.
Articulating the left-right distinction
• Imagine two individuals with moderate left-of-centre
orientations.
– One may value group solidarity strongly, but have little
concern for individual liberties.
– The other may value both the individual and the group to
an equal but moderate extent.
• Self-report an identical orientation
• Disagree strongly over particular policies:
– For instance, immigration and free trade
– High group loyalty  favour trade barriers and protection
– Civil liberties: treatment of individuals divides opinion
among the left.
In Summary
• Personality system model is a useful
framework for understanding the complex
relationship between personality and political
orientation.
• Personality significantly shapes political
orientation
– Largely indirectly, via an intermediary layer of
characteristic adaptations.
– Countervailing effects common and important