Abstract
Political scientists have long known that the sense of civic duty is one of the strongest predictors of individual voter turnout, yet scholars are only just starting to study and understand the origins of this orientation. Recent genopolitics research has indicated that the sense of civic duty is heritable, and recent research in political psychology has illustrated that individual personality traits, many of which have a heritable component, shape feelings of civic obligation. In this article, we link these two lines of inquiry to better understand how individual differences shape the sense of civic duty. More specifically, we explore the relationship between personality traits, measured using the Big Five model; genes; and the sense of civic duty. We show that genetic factors account for between 70% and 87% of the correlation between civic duty and four of the Big Five personality traits. Overall, the results presented here expand our understanding of the process through which prosocial orientations, such as civic duty, are formed.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 47-76 |
| Number of pages | 30 |
| Journal | American Politics Research |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 1 2018 |
Fingerprint
Keywords
- Big Five
- civic duty
- genes
- genopolitics
- personality traits
- prosocial
- voter turnout
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Sociology and Political Science
Cite this
Genes, Personality Traits, and the Sense of Civic Duty. / Weinschenk, Aaron C.; Dawes, Christopher.
In: American Politics Research, Vol. 46, No. 1, 01.01.2018, p. 47-76.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
}
TY - JOUR
T1 - Genes, Personality Traits, and the Sense of Civic Duty
AU - Weinschenk, Aaron C.
AU - Dawes, Christopher
PY - 2018/1/1
Y1 - 2018/1/1
N2 - Political scientists have long known that the sense of civic duty is one of the strongest predictors of individual voter turnout, yet scholars are only just starting to study and understand the origins of this orientation. Recent genopolitics research has indicated that the sense of civic duty is heritable, and recent research in political psychology has illustrated that individual personality traits, many of which have a heritable component, shape feelings of civic obligation. In this article, we link these two lines of inquiry to better understand how individual differences shape the sense of civic duty. More specifically, we explore the relationship between personality traits, measured using the Big Five model; genes; and the sense of civic duty. We show that genetic factors account for between 70% and 87% of the correlation between civic duty and four of the Big Five personality traits. Overall, the results presented here expand our understanding of the process through which prosocial orientations, such as civic duty, are formed.
AB - Political scientists have long known that the sense of civic duty is one of the strongest predictors of individual voter turnout, yet scholars are only just starting to study and understand the origins of this orientation. Recent genopolitics research has indicated that the sense of civic duty is heritable, and recent research in political psychology has illustrated that individual personality traits, many of which have a heritable component, shape feelings of civic obligation. In this article, we link these two lines of inquiry to better understand how individual differences shape the sense of civic duty. More specifically, we explore the relationship between personality traits, measured using the Big Five model; genes; and the sense of civic duty. We show that genetic factors account for between 70% and 87% of the correlation between civic duty and four of the Big Five personality traits. Overall, the results presented here expand our understanding of the process through which prosocial orientations, such as civic duty, are formed.
KW - Big Five
KW - civic duty
KW - genes
KW - genopolitics
KW - personality traits
KW - prosocial
KW - voter turnout
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85037623147&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85037623147&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1532673X17710760
DO - 10.1177/1532673X17710760
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85037623147
VL - 46
SP - 47
EP - 76
JO - American Politics Research
JF - American Politics Research
SN - 1532-673X
IS - 1
ER -