High Openness and Low Conscientiousness Predict Green Party Preferences and Voting

Abstract

A substantial rise of vote shares of Green parties across European countries suggests an increasing support of environmental issues. A critical question for researchers and policymakers alike is, who endorses Green parties? Here, we examined the Big Five personality predictors of green partisanship, voting behavior, and party switching in a nationally representative sample of more than 27,000 Germans collected over a period of 16 years. Consistent with previous research, high openness and low conscientiousness emerged as the strongest personality predictors of green partisanship and voting behavior. Critically, high openness also predicted the likelihood to switch to a Green party vote across two federal elections. These effects held when controlling for demographics and environmental concerns, suggesting that the association between personality and support for Greens reflects more than social norms or attitudes about the environment. We close with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.