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Political Personality and Electoral Choice*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Robert E. Lane
Robert E. Lane
Affiliation:
Yale University
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Extract

The most widely-held and well-supported theories of electoral choice today relate such choice to group membership, socializing, so to speak, the vote decision. In this process the personality of the individual voter has tended to be overlooked or its influence minimized. In focussing in this discussion upon the relationship of authoritarianism to electoral choice, therefore, we hope not only to contribute to our knowledge of a particular personality pattern in a political context but also, more generally, to restore the individual, as contrasted to the group, to an important place in a theory of the electoral process.

In an electoral situation, as in any other situation, personality factors play a double role: (1) they affect the perceptions of the individual, screening out some stimuli, distorting others, and admitting others intact; and (2) they shape the responses of a person, selecting among the various possible responses those which are most serviceable to basic personality needs. Every personality develops certain attitudes to assist in this process of selecting among the possible responses. For example, interest in the election, sense of duty, sense of political efficacy, or sense of social integration with the community might form the nucleus of the attitudes bearing on the decision whether or not to vote. Identification with a political party, position on current political issues, candidate preference, anticipation of economic or political advantage, prestige considerations, or identification with a partisan social group might affect the vote itself.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 1955 , pp. 173 - 190
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1955

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References

1 See, for example, Elmo Roper's interpretation of “concern” in “New York Elects O'Dwyer”, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 10, pp. 53–57 (Spring, 1946)Google Scholar. Merriam, Charles E. and Gosnell, Harold F. treat this attitude under the head of general apathy in Non-Voting (Chicago, 1924)Google Scholar; Lazarsfeld, Paul, Berelson, Bernard, and Gaudet, Hazel consider the significance of “interest” in The People's Choice (New York, 1944), pp. 40–41Google Scholar.

2 Campbell, Angus, Gurin, Gerald, and Miller, Warren, The Voter Decides (Evanston, Ill., 1954), pp. 194–99Google Scholar; Gough, Harrison et al. , “A Personality Scale for Social Responsibility”, Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, Vol. 47, pp. 73–80 (Jan., 1952)CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

3 See The Voter Decides, pp. 187–94.

4 See Kitt, Alice and Gleicher, David B., “Determinants of Voting Behavior”, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 14, pp. 393–412 (Fall, 1951)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; the idea forms an important part of the analysis of Berelson, Bernard, Lazarsfeld, Paul, and McPhee, William M., Voting (Chicago, 1954)Google Scholar, and is further developed in The Voter Decides, pp. 199–206.

5 The idea of traditional loyalty to political parties has been discussed by such writers as MacCauley, , Bryce, , and Holcombe, , and has recently been analyzed by Key, V. O. in his Southern Politics in State and Nation (New York, 1949)Google Scholar. See also Voting and The Voter Decides, pp. 88–11.

6 For the relationship of issues to electoral choice see Rice, Stuart, Quantitative Methods in Politics (New York, 1928)Google Scholar; Turner, Julius, Party and Constituency (Baltimore, 1951)Google Scholar; Belknap, George and Campbell, Angus, “Political Party Identification and Attitudes toward Foreign Policy”, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 15, pp. 601–23 (Winter, 1951–1952)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; The Voter Decides, pp. 112–35; Campbell, Angus and Kahn, Robert L., The People Elect a President (Ann Arbor, 1952), pp. 54–60Google Scholar.

7 See Sanford, Fillmore, “Public Orientation to Roosevelt”, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 15, pp. 189–216 (Summer, 1951)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bruner, Jerome and Korchin, Sheldon, “The Boss and the Vote”, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 10, pp. 1–23 (Spring, 1946)Google Scholar; The Voter Decides, pp. 136–43; Davies, James C., “Charisma in the 1952 Campaign”, this Review, Vol. 48, pp. 1083–1102 (Dec., 1954)Google Scholar.

8 Although the assumption that man behaves economically in political situations has been prevalent in the literature, the nature of this type of motivation has rarely been analyzed. Much of the discussion has dealt with group economic interests, confusing the appeals of group solidarity and economic gain. Other discussion, that of Bean, Lundberg, Holcombe, Lubell, and others, shows the economic basis for the vote, without reference to the psychology of economic self-interest. On this latter point, see the forthcoming work of Stephen Sarasohn.

9 Lubell, Samuel, The Future of American Politics (New York, 1951), pp. 75–80Google Scholar.

10 Freeman, Howard and Showell, Morris, “Differential Political Influence of Voluntary Associations”, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 15, pp. 703–14 (Winter, 1952)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; The People's Choice, pp. 137–58; Berelson et al., Voting; and Janowitz, Morris and Miller, Warren, “The Index of Political Predispositions in the 1948 Elections”, Journal of Politics, Vol. 14, pp. 710–25 (Nov., 1950)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, Else, Levinson, Daniel S., and Sanford, R. Nevitt, The Authoritarian Personality (New York, 1950)Google Scholar.

12 Christie, Richard and Jahoda, Marie, “The Authoritarian Personality”, in Continuities in Social Research (Glencoe, Ill., 1954), pp. 50–122Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., pp. 123–96

14 The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 222–79.

15 The coefficients of error for each question were: 1—7.6; 2—12.7; 3—12.0; and 4—7.4. On computation and use of the Guttman Scale, see Guttman, L., “The Basis for Scalogram Analysis”, in Stouffer, Samuel et al. , Measurement and Prediction: Studies in Social Psychology in World War II (Princeton, 1950)Google Scholar.

16 Janowitz, Morris and Marvick, Dwaine, “Authoritarianism and Political Behavior”, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 17, pp. 185–201 (Summer, 1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Sanford, Fillmore H., Authoritarianism and Leadership (Philadelphia, 1950), p. 159Google Scholar.

18 Authoritarianism and Leadership, p. 181.

19 Ibid., pp. 159–69.

20 The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 151–207.

21 See Shils, Edward A., “Authoritarianism: ‘Right’ and ‘Left’”, in Continuities in Social Research (cited in note 12), pp. 24–49Google Scholar.

22 See Milton, Ohmer, “Presidential Choice and Performance on a Scale of Authoritarianism”, The American Psychologist, Vol. 7, pp. 597–98 (Oct., 1952)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 The Authoritarian Personality, pp. 461 ff.; 480 ff.

24 See Turner, Julius, “Responsible Parties: A Dissent from the Floor”, this Review Vol. 45, pp. 143–52 (March, 1951)Google Scholar.

25 See The Voter Decides, pp. 112–35.

26 Ibid., p. 67.