European Review, Vol. 15, No.

2, 151164 (2007) Academia Europa, Printed in the United Kingdom

The Personalization of Modern Politics

GIAN VITTORIO CAPRARA Department of Psychology, University of Rome La Sapienza, via dei Marsi 78, Rome 00185, Italy. E-mail: gianvittorio.caprara@uniroma.it

The individual characteristics of leaders and voters have assumed great importance in modern political discourse. Pervasive media inuence points to leaders personality as an anchor around which political information is organized in drawing in and/or deterring the electorates preferences. Voters traits, values and perceptions of politicians are no less important than traditional socio-demographic characteristics such as gender, age, educational level, occupation and income in explaining political preferences. Recent ndings suggest that politics is becoming personalized, as political choices increasingly depend on voters personality. More specically, voters distinctive pattern of habits, attitudes and values, serve as a compass that grants coherence to their own preferences and that helps them make sense of politicians behaviour.

Introduction In recent decades, there have been many changes in the political landscape of major democracies with regard to consensus formation, elites selection and citizens political engagement. Among the most evident changes are shifts in focus from group afliations to individual choices and from issue-centred politics to more person-centred politics. While the epistemic status of ideology is a matter of debate,13 ideological divisions are less marked than in the past as opposing political parties form coalitions and move towards positions that are hardly distinctive. Consequently, the personality of both voters and candidates has gained salience. In particular, the electorate of modern democracies is increasingly basing its decisions on personal reasons, that is, on personal beliefs, moral priorities, aspirations and expectations, thereby making use of cognitive strategies aimed at helping them cope with the complexity of political issues, with the image of candidates playing a central role in colouring and anchoring their impressions and decisions.48 As a result, politicians have become more concerned with conveying

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favourable impressions and appealing narratives, with the media playing a major role in crafting the images and shaping the messages that are most desirable to voters. Although the study of personality has not been foreign to political science, it has focused on the personality characteristics of political leaders. Since the early 1930s, clinical, psycho-biographical and questionnaire studies have examined politicians world views, cognitive and decisional styles, modes of interpersonal interaction, and orientation in conicts.4,9 Surprisingly, until very recently, we have known very little about the unique contribution of voters personalities or of their perceptions of leaders personalities in supporting their political choices. Fortunately, one can now welcome recent progress from the science of personality. Two concepts of personality Personality is a concept, as difcult and as familiar as many others in psychology. In reality, none can elude such a concept in everyday discourse as one cannot avoid a theory. In particular, one cannot avoid a conceptual network to organize knowledge, impressions and conjectures of ones own and others personality to form a dialogue with oneself and to make commerce with others. The fact that this theory is often implicit or tacit does not limit its inuence. Rather, popular knowledge may operate as a double-edged sword rather than as secure advantage when personal intuitions and common sense are at odds with scientic ndings. Personality includes behavioural tendencies and systems, structures and mechanisms that regulate affective, cognitive and motivational processes. It involves internal systems and processes that guide people towards the attainment of individual and collective goals, accounts for coherence and behavioural continuity across contexts, and ultimately, explains ones personal identity.10 Contemporary scholars have addressed personality under two distinct perspectives. The rst perspective views personality as an architecture of traits or, in other words, a system of habitual behaviours that allow us both to distinguish one person from another and to make conjectures and predictions regarding individuals conduct. The second perspective views personality as a self-regulatory agentic system that is capable of reecting on its own experiences and that interacts with the environment in conformity with personal criteria and goals. These two perspectives produce diverse questions and pave the way to distinct research programmes. For instance, some programmes focus on the individual variables that are most likely to inuence the impressions and evaluations that are drawn from the way individuals present themselves and behave. In comparison, other research programmes focus on the organization of affect and cognitions conducive to beliefs and goals that guide individuals behaviour from within. Both

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perspectives complement each other in making sense of the inuence that the personality of leaders and voters may exert on political decisions. Two aspects of the personalization of politics Discussion regarding the personalization of politics is long-standing and becoming more frequent. Generally, these debates make reference to the personality characteristics of political candidates and to the substantial investments made by political campaigns aimed at crafting and delivering personal images that are most attractive to voters.1113 In reality, however, the personalization of politics does not only concern the signicant impact of politicians personality characteristics on voters preferences but also relates to the role of voters personality with respect to their own decision making. Thus, the same concept encompasses diverse phenomena that reect two distinct groups of related factors; politicians personality as perceived and voters personality as operating. In this regard, my reasoning draws upon the above distinction between the two concepts of personality and points to two distinct perspectives under which one may view the personalization of politics. The rst is mainly interested in the individual variables that are most likely to inuence the impressions and evaluations voters draw from politicians. The second is mostly concerned with voters reasons namely, voters beliefs, values and expectations that underlie their decisions. A number of factors point to the increasing importance of both politicians and voters personality in contemporary politics. Among the elements that contribute to assigning politicians personality characteristics of particular importance are: the electoral system, which often leads to the formation of electoral coalitions that converge into a single leadership or that restrict voters choices at the ballot box among two single candidates; the dubious ideological identity of new parties that have taken the place of traditional movements reecting the material conditions of life of diverse social groups; the shifting of opposing political coalitions towards more pragmatic platforms aimed to attract a larger sphere of the electorate; the vanishing distinctiveness of electoral programmes and the inuence of the media. Obviously, the inuence of each of these elements may vary across political contexts, at different times as well as in relation to their various combinations. Above all, television is generally seen as a potent vehicle of personalization capable of highlighting the personal characteristics and signicantly contributing to the fortunes of political actors. Among the elements that lead to assigning voters personality characteristics, particular importance may be assigned to the higher education level of the electorate, citizens higher awareness of their political rights and duties and, above

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all, the view of voters as reasoning agents who pursue the best match between their beliefs and values and political offers. Ultimately, it is voters unique organization of affect, cognitions and habits that, taken together, make sense of their political choices. It is likely that in the personalization of politics, voters personality is no less important than politicians personality, in particular in those political systems that reward the active participation of citizens and offer a plurality of choices. In fact, the declining inuence of social class and party identication on voters political choices in most western democracies suggests that political preferences are increasingly dependent on the likes and dislikes of voters, their cognitive strategies, and their personal concerns. As individuals emancipate themselves from conditions of scarcity and experience higher mobility, they are confronted with multiple world views and opportunities. As traditional ties and loyalties weaken, interpersonal bonds are continuously re-negotiated. The ethos of modernity commends the full expression of ones own individuality and the full actualization of ones potentials. It is probable that personal interests are still at the basis of political preferences. Yet they include a variety of symbolic interests connected to immaterial goods such as self-respect, social belonging, others regard, and the power to voice ones own ideas and to share common projects. The paradox of voting Voting may appear to be a paradoxical phenomenon if one considers the difference between the objective and subjective values of individual votes. While single votes are generally irrelevant with respect to the outcome of an election, voting has a tremendous value for people who are ready to sacrice their life to ensure the granting of the right to vote to their progenies. Most voters are aware of the difculty in making an optimal choice due to the mass of information and the complexity of the issues. Ultimately, a few may get tired of voting or even abstain from it. However, most citizens would feel extremely offended if they were deprived of their right to vote. It is likely that this right is mostly associated with self-respect and the regard one expects from others rather than to its practical utility. Indeed, it is difcult to imagine another action that celebrates both equality and belongingness at the same time. Every citizens vote, regardless of his or her social position in society, counts to the same extent as another persons vote just as everyones vote is inuential only when aggregated with other votes. Voting has a function that is both symbolic and expressive and that goes beyond saving material and contingent interests. When people vote, despite knowing that it is very improbable that their single vote will inuence the results of an election, they express their individual autonomy, assert the equal dignity of their views,

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afrm their belongingness and attest to their trust in concerted action. Thus, voting attests to a world of liberties and equality and sets the mental (e.g. convictions and expectations) and relational conditions (e.g. personal connections and reciprocal obligations) necessary for coexistence, consensus and government. While philosophers have pointed to the symbolic utility of voting,14 psychologists focus on the mental structures and processes that assign meaning and relevance to experience and which ultimately make sense of political choices. Traits and values Numerous researchers, at different times, have postulated associations between political behaviour and various aspects of individuals personality, such as traits, motives, cognitive styles, social attitudes and values.4,15,16 Indeed, personality represents a complex set of diverse structures and processes that can take on multiple functions in different social contexts. Even among scholars, it proves difcult to reach an agreement on the multiple constructs that often overlap in the various combinations of affect, cognitions and habitual behaviours. Thus, parsimony suggests limiting the following exposition to major individual differences in traits and values. Traits and values are distinctive components of personality that exert different functions in an individuals functioning while operating in concert and inuencing each other reciprocally. Traits are enduring dispositions to behave in habitual ways associated with consistent patterns of thought and feelings. Traits describe what people are like and vary in the frequency and intensity of their occurrence. In comparison, values are cognitive representations of desirable, abstract, trans-situational goals that serve as guiding principles in peoples lives. Values refer to what people consider important and vary in their priority as standards for judging behaviour, events, and people. In the domain of traits, many researchers agree that most of personalitys behavioural tendencies and descriptors can be traced back to ve basic factors the so-called Big Five that capture the essential features of all traits: energy/extraversion, friendliness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness.9 Energy/extraversion refers to individuals tendency to behave and react vigorously in different situations and is usually described by adjectives such as energetic, active, and dynamic. Friendliness refers to individuals concern for altruism, generosity, and loyalty and is usually described by adjectives such as honest, sincere, and kind. Conscientiousness refers to individuals tendency to pursue order and meet ones own obligations and is usually described by adjectives such as diligent, reliable, and precise. Emotional stability refers to the controlling of impulses and emotions and it is usually described by adjectives such as calm, patient, and relaxed. Finally, openness refers to an interest in culture and

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curiosity for new experiences and is described by adjectives such as innovative, imaginative, and creative. Numerous studies have extensively examined the impact of the above traits on political choices, using questionnaires and lists of adjectives. Individuals with left-wing and liberal ideologies have consistently shown higher scores in openness than conservative individuals, whereas the reverse is true for conscientiousness. These ndings have proved true in such diverse political systems as the United States and Italy, as well as among voters and politicians of rival coalitions.3,4 In the domain of values, Schwartz has provided a theory that has paved the way for systematic studies and for comparisons among countries on the impact that values exert on various domains of functioning and political preferences.17 The theory proposes four broad value dimensions that include ten fundamental values: conservation (security, conformity and tradition), openness to change (selfdirection, stimulation and hedonism), self-transcendence (universalism and benevolence) and self-enhancement (power and achievement). The priority of values has been used as a predictor of voting behaviour in several countries. Although the specic values that predicted voting varied across political context, voters who gave high priority to self-transcendence tended to vote for parties that emphasize solidarity and pluralism rather than order and security. In addition, right-wing voters scored higher in self-enhancement and conservation values such as power and security, and lower in self-transcendence values such as benevolence and universalism than did left-wing voters.18,19 Both traits and values accounted for a signicant portion of variability in voting, whereas the inuence of socio-demographic characteristics, like sex, age, educational level was minimal. Both differences in traits and values among voters of rival coalitions corroborate the hypotheses of a kind of congruency between self-presentation and political preferences, suggesting that people vote in accordance with the ways in which they habitually behave and with the values they assign priority to. Indeed, these differences appear to be congruent with the traditional concern, in western democracies, of right and conservative ideologies for individual success and social order and left and liberal ideologies for equality and social justice. Reducing complexity The belief that a leaders personality is decisive in electoral competition is widespread among the general public. Among scholars, however, opinions are diverse. Some argue that politicians personality or the personal image they convey to the electorate can be even more important than their political platform.20,21 In contrast, others contend that the leaders personality actually has only a marginal effect in comparison to other factors, such as party identication, ideology, religion and material life conditions.12,13,21,22 Both positions appear

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plausible if one considers the diversity of political context and the complexity of the issues in question. In particular, even when one compares similar electoral systems with democratic traditions, it is difcult to distinguish the effects of leaders personality characteristics from other factors that compete and interact with them. In all probability, the most important factor for voters is the politicians intentions, namely, the values, priorities and aims that dictate their actions. However, politicians aims and values are only indirectly accessible to the electorate through their behaviour, namely, their speeches, habits, and actions. As a result, it is not infrequent that when dealing with leaders personality, we refer to traits or dispositions, drawn from habitual behaviour, that serve as proxy indicators of motives and values. In reality, traits and values are generally correlated.23 As a consequence, a good command of the language of personality is recommended to be able to identify and to render salient those personal characteristics that are most attractive at a certain time and for particular constituencies. Such a command should allow us to use words to focus on behaviours that make salient traits associated to values that are most inuential for the electorate. In this regard, a number of studies have shown that energy and friendliness serve as primary anchors that subsume other traits. Furthermore, it has also been shown that voters judgements of politicians can typically be traced back to only two or three personality factors, whereas peoples judgement of themselves and others are usually traced back to the ve basic personality factors. In several studies, judgements were made from ratings of a list of adjectives including markers of Energy, Friendliness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Openness. Factor analysis was used to identify the optimal number of underlying factors. Voters in Italy and the US simplied their personality judgements of candidates in ongoing election campaigns (Bill Clinton and Bob Dole and John Kerry and George W. Bush in the US and Romano Prodi and Silvio Berlusconi in Italy) by restricting the usual ve factors to a combination of two main factors. In most cases, the collapsed factors included one leadership factor, which included Energy and Openness, and an integrity factor blending Friendliness, Conscientiousness, and Emotional Stability. The same simplied solution has been replicated in Italy on politicians with different degrees of political leadership, and with the same politicians serving in different roles (party leaders, Prime Minister, President of European Commission). However, there was no reduction in the expected penta-factorial solution when voters evaluated their own personality or the personalities of celebrities who share with politicians similar visibility and similar indirect knowledge through the media.4,24,25 Similarly, voters judgments of politicians values were less complex and articulated than when reporting their own values, with concern for others (a blend of benevolence and universalism minus power and achievement) resulting in

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the most important value in the evaluation of politicians personalities.25 These ndings are in accordance with others that point to leadership, competence, trustworthiness and integrity as the personal characteristics that are most important among electorates in Western democracies. Moreover, they are in accordance with the arguments of those scholars who see voters as rational agents that deal with complexity using a variety of efcient strategies.7,26,27 Dispositional and similarity heuristics As modern politics present voters with an enormous amount of information to process from multiple sources, the bounded rationality of citizens prompts them to compensate for the complexity of political issues and the limitations of their political expertise by using cognitive heuristics as efcient mental shortcuts for organizing the mass of incoming information and for simplifying political choices. One form of judgmental heuristic is a kind of dispositional heuristic that anchors impressions and inferences about politicians intentions to traits that are habitually used to describe oneself and others and that are most important within politics. For instance, whereas energy and friendliness are important ingredients of leadership and integrity, friendliness is usually associated with concern for others. Dispositional constructs, while summarizing a variety of sensations and perceptions and carrying specic attributions about politicians motives and intentions, provide parsimonious ways to organize knowledge and extend voters control over politicians future performance, on the common assumption that personality traits are relatively stable. Another form of judgemental heuristic at work in the political domain is a kind of similarity heuristic, conducive to liking those perceived similar, and thus supplying the emotional glue that is needed to cement preferences. The hypothesis that likeness is conducive to liking draws upon a broad literature that attests to the advantages associated to familiarity as well as to a kind of egocentric favouritism that leads to liking and preferring those who are perceived similar to oneself.2831 Findings drawn from the 2004 Presidential elections in the US and from recent Italian national elections have shown that voters generally perceive politicians for whom they vote for as being most similar to themselves, while those they do not vote for are judged to be most different. Similarity among voters and politicians were highest for traits that were most distinctive of voters of opposite coalitions and of their leader. In the US, John Kerry was unanimously appraised to be more open-minded than George W. Bush, and Kerrys supporters showed signicantly higher levels of Openness than supporters of Bush. In addition, similarity between Kerry and his voters was particularly high for markers of Openness (e.g. sharp, informed). In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi was unanimously

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appraised as more active, energetic and dynamic than Romano Prodi. Centre-right voters scored higher in Energy/Extraversion than centre-left voters and similarity between Berlusconi and his voters was particularly high for markers of Energy/Extraversion (e.g. active and dynamic).31 It is likely that traits are the units that allow voters to organize their impressions of politicians and to link politicians perceived personalities to their own personalities, and thus are the elements through which the similarity-attraction principle operates in politics. Whereas similarity is associated with political preference, there are no ndings that allow us to clarify fully the mechanism by which similarity operates and the extent of its impact on voting. One may guess that voters either project onto their preferred candidates the personality characteristics that are most distinctive of themselves and that likely they value most, or that voters are attracted by candidates that show personality characteristics they value most. In addition, one may hold that perceived similarity is most inuential on voting, or rather, that voting ultimately determines perceived similarity. Both hypotheses and alternative paths of inuence are plausible and compatible. In reality, the similarity effect cannot be considered only due to pre- or post-voting projection, since other ndings, such as those discussed above, have shown that self-reported politicians personalities are more similar to the personalities of their voters than to the personalities of the their opponents voters.32 Ultimately, whatever the source of perceived similarity, one cannot doubt the function that it exerts in building and keeping consensus. The more voters acknowledge in their leaders the same personal qualities that they use to characterize themselves, the easier it will be for voters to infer that their leader will act on their behalf and in accordance with a shared world view. Achieving congruency Congruency between emotions, cognitions and actions corresponds to a kind of necessity that marks our lives. Individuals feel uneasy when behaviour does not fall in line with feelings and reasoning, and when emotions, thoughts, and actions are not in accordance with one another. In reality, it is a property of our self-system and a necessity of our social life to preserve a certain level of congruency between what we declare and what we do and between how we feel and how we present ourselves. Patterns of congruity between thoughts, emotions and actions are at the core of our identity as they get associated with the experience of unity and continuity and allow us to make sense of others behaviours, feelings and thoughts on the assumption that what accounts for oneself also accounts for others. The above ndings support the view that a powerful congruency principle is functioning at different stages of political transactions with personality

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evaluations playing a crucial role in making sense of both voters preferences and politicians appeals. The congruency principle operates in how the distinctive personality characteristics reported by leaders and followers of opposing coalitions can be traced back to common ideals. Next, it operates in how voters appraise politicians personality, selecting those attributes that they believe to be most relevant to the political ofce and that they personally value most. Finally, it operates in how voters perceive politicians as similar to themselves, either because politicians and voters of the same coalitions share similar values and habits, or because politicians tend to convey images that highlight those traits that are most congruent with the political views that they advocate. While congruency attests to the commonality of feelings, thoughts, habits and ideals among partisans and accentuates the contrast with the opponents electorate, the image that people have and cultivate of themselves serves as a compass to navigate in the outer world of politics. Just as there is a match between what people report about themselves in the sphere of habits, needs, values, and political orientations, there is likewise a match between the self-reported personality of voters and the perceived personality of preferred politicians. It has been shown that combining self-reported traits and values and perceived traits and values accounts for over 40% of variance in voting, whereas traditional socio-demographic characteristics do not account for more than 3%. While voters self-reported values have primacy over self-reported traits and together account for one third of explained variance in voting, voters perceived traits of politicians have primacy over perceived values and together account for an additional and substantial portion of variance. While voters are likely to justify their political choices by referring to their basic values, it is likely that perceived politicians traits serve as anchors from which voters may infer politicians values.25 It remains to be claried whether traits that predispose towards particular world views, or whether values are the ultimate determinants of voluntary behaviour like voting. In this case, one faces two major competing theories of personality. Some scholars argue that basic traits are at the root of any behavioural tendency as well as of attitudes and values and point to the Big Five as the genotype of personality. Others, in contrast, argue that self-beliefs, personal standards and goals guide behaviour and point to the properties of the human mind that emerge from the encountering of the organism with the environment. For instance, self-reection, self-regulation and purposefulness make individuals able to capitalize upon experience, to contribute actively to the construction of ones personality and allow individuals to chart the course of life with autonomy.10 In addition, the extent remains to be claried to which the congruency among traits, values and political preferences reect not only individuals needs but also social roles and scripts that shape personal identities in accordance with the principles that govern social systems at different times and in different cultural contexts.

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As values remain at the core of both personal and social identities,33 they can attest both to individuals degrees of freedom in choosing the kind of person to become as well as to the pervasive inuence of socialization practices on individual development. Social theories focusing on the special properties of human agency view individuals as agents, entitled with broad degrees of autonomy in selecting environments, activities and people, in pursuing goals that accord with their own values and in advocating a unique sense of ones own self. Yet other social theories focusing on the inuence that membership in families, groups, class, and communities exert on individuals development and functioning view self-beliefs, attitudes and values as largely dictated by shared social conventions as well as by the place people occupy in society. In this regard, it is likely that a more or less view seems more appropriate than an either or perspective to address the congruency between values, habits and political preferences and to distinguish what part of voting is due to the combination of idiosyncratic attributes of an individual or to the result of his or her afliations and memberships. In reality, personal and social identities are inextricably linked together and, as such, contribute to political preference. Yet, I believe that viewing oneself as a unique individual versus viewing oneself as a member of family, a group or a community, plays a major role in political choice today more than in the past. Whereas differences in prioritising, self-enhancement or self-transcendence values further attests to the left-right polarity as a reasonable representation of ideological differences in the political domain,1,3,6 these differences draw upon categorical memberships like gender, generation, religion and class much less than in the past in most western democracies. Ultimately, the above ndings lead me to guess that in most western democracies, politics is most personalized as political choices depend increasingly on voters reasons, and voters reasoning depends increasingly on self-reection. Namely, reecting on ones own distinctive pattern of habits, attitudes and values serves as a compass and grants coherence to ones behaviour as well as allows us to make sense of others behaviour. Conclusions Until very recently, we have known very little about the unique contribution of voters personality and of their perceptions of leaders personality in supporting their political choices. The ndings reported above attest to the substantial inuence that mental constructs such as self-images, values and others impressions exert on political preferences. Voting has always had a symbolic valence as attested by the power of ideologies, party identication and class solidarity.34 However, today voting

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behaviour assumes an intense expressive valence and great symbolic utility for the subject himself or herself, at least in western democracies. I am inclined to believe that the broader the latitude of political offerings, the higher individuals liberty in political preferences, the more mental representations of self and personal views about the world dictate individual choices. In voting, individuals attest to their personal identity twice: (1) in proclaiming the values that most substantiate their own identity and (2) in using their own identity as a compass to orient themselves in politics. Voting is congruent with ones own values and habits as people relate their life to their personal values and these are reected in their habitual behaviours (dispositions). As our own values dictate our behaviour, voters may infer politicians values from their behaviours under the assumption that the same pattern of connections hold for others as for themselves. In particular, the more politicians are perceived to be similar to ourselves, the more the same pattern of relations between values and habits that explains our behaviour serves to make sense of politicians behaviour. As this reasoning applies to western democracies, I am aware that the same may not apply to other social and cultural contexts, where notions like human agency, personal and social identity, ideology and political rights are expressed in different ways. In addition, I am aware that alternative and less optimistic views are equally plausible, even in western societies, as one may wonder about the risks of excessively extending the symbolic utility of voting (expressive function) at the expense of its concrete utility (control and guidance of political action). Psychology, while applauding the new appeal of individual subjectivity, warns against the excessive expansion of symbolic politics, namely, the abuse of emotionally-charged appeals to ideas and values, as it may feed mere illusions of control and consensus. In conclusion, the need for serious programmes of research aimed at investigating the network of reasons that sustain citizens preferences and the social conditions that allow individuals to be effective agents in the political sphere is clear.

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About the Author Gian Vittorio Caprara is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Rome, La Sapienza and Director of the Interuniversity Centre for Research on the Genesis and Development of Prosocial and Antisocial Motivations. His main research contributions have been in the area of personality psychology and psychosocial development. His current interests include personal determinants of political choices and civic engagement.