When Likeness Goes with Liking: The Case of Political Preference |
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Authors: | Gian Vittorio Caprara Michele Vecchione Claudio Barbaranelli R. Chris Fraley |
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Affiliation: | University of Rome "La Sapienza"; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
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Abstract: | Three studies show that people tend to vote for politicians (i.e., either Romano Prodi or Silvio Berlusconi in Italy or George W. Bush or John Kerry in the United States) whose traits they rate as being most similar to their own. People perceived higher similarity between themselves and political figures with respect to traits that were most distinctive of each platform and their respective leaders. These findings, while corroborating the similarity-attraction relationship, further attest to the role that personal characteristics of both voters and candidates play in orienting political preference. |
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Keywords: | Big Five personality politics similarity |
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