Open AccessThe intervening role of social worldviews in the relationship between the five‐factor model of personality and social attitudes
Author(s) -
Van Hiel A.,
Cornelis I.,
Roets A.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
european journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.839
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1099-0984
pISSN - 0890-2070
DOI - 10.1002/per.618
Subject(s) - social dominance orientation , psychology , agreeableness , social psychology , personality , openness to experience , big five personality traits , neuroticism , acquiescence , extraversion and introversion , authoritarianism , politics , political science , law , democracy
Abstract The present research investigates in a student ( N = 183) and a voter sample ( N = 276) whether the relationships between the Five‐Factor Model (FFM) personality dimensions and social attitudes (i.e. Right‐Wing Authoritarianism [RWA] and Social Dominance Orientation [SDO]) are mediated by social worldviews (i.e. dangerous and jungle worldviews). Two important results were obtained. First, the perception of the world as inherently dangerous and chaotic partially mediated the relationships of the personality dimensions Openness and Neuroticism and the social attitude RWA. Second, the jungle worldview completely mediated the relationships between Agreeableness and SDO, but considerable item overlap between the jungle worldview and SDO was also noted. It was further revealed that acquiescence response set and item overlap had an impact on social worldviews and attitudes, but that their relationships were hardly affected by these biases. The discussion focuses on the status of social worldviews to explain social attitudes. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.