Citation

Lewis GJ. Psychol. Sci. 2018; 29(5): 711-722.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Royal Holloway, University of London.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Association for Psychological Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1177/0956797617742159

PMID

29451460

Abstract

Longstanding interest has been directed toward the etiology of sociopolitical attitudes. Personality traits have been posited as antecedents; however, most work addressing such links has been limited to cross-sectional study designs. The current study used data from two large (both Ns > 8,700), longitudinal cohorts of individuals from the United Kingdom who were parent-assessed on a measure of temperament (assessing anxiety, conduct problems, and hyperactivity) at age 5 or 7 years and on a range of sociopolitical attitudes at age 30 or 33 years. In both cohorts, higher levels of childhood conduct problems predicted higher levels of economic and political discontent in adulthood. These associations were still evident when controlling for sex, childhood intelligence, and parental social class. In both cohorts, this pathway was partially mediated by educational attainment and achieved social class. These findings are consistent with the perspective that early-life temperament gives rise to adult political sentiment.

Language: en

Keywords

attitudes; conduct problems; economic and political discontent; longitudinal; personality; politics