The personality bases of socio-political attitudes: The role of Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience

We investigated the personality bases of two broad dimensions of socio-political attitudes Hierarchy (versus Equality) Orientation and Social Conformity (versus Change) Orientation. In a US adult sample and in Canadian and Korean college student samples, we administered the HEXACO Personality Inventory Revised, and we assessed the socio-political dimensions using the Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) scales and the Schwartz Value Survey (SVS). As predicted, Hierarchy Orientation variables correlated primarily with low Honesty-Humility, whereas Social Conformity Orientation variables correlated primarily with low Openness to Experience. The findings suggest that the major dimensions of socio-political attitudes can be understood in part as expressions of the personality dimensions of Honesty-Humility and Openness to Experience. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.