The Big Five Offers Only a Weak Prediction of Politics, Regardless of the Approach

Abstract

The present study examines the Big Five traits and socio-demographic factors as predictors of both traditional left-right and liberal-conservative positions of Slovak voters (N = 704). As shown in previous research, Open-Mindedness and Conscientiousness are significant but weak predictors of both political axes, while Agreeableness plays a surprising role in predicting left-right orientation. To overcome the limitations of traditional political axes, three latent variables of the Slovak political space were discovered by exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of political preferences: sympathy towards old/new government, socially conservative parties, and a non-populist coalition. The former is significantly predicted by Open-Mindedness, while the latter is predicted by Conscientiousness. Overall, the Big Five traits predict a small but significant variance in political variables.