Recently, researchers have shown an increased interest in examining the impact of individual characteristics of voters (personality traits, attitudes and personal values) on a political choice. The aim of this paper is to examine the relationships between voters› basic values, their political orientation and voting behavior in Polish national election in 2011. Personal values were treated as a cognitive representations of desirable, abstract goals. According to Schwartz's theory, there are 10 basic, universal values (power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, selfdirection, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, and security), organized into four higher-level types (conservation, openness to change, self-transcendence and self-enhancement). To assess the participants› basic values, the Schwartz's Portrait Value Questionnaire was used. Comparisons between the groups of voters were made using the ANOVA method and the Tukey's post-hoc tests. The results of the study indicate that right-wing voters scored higher in tradition, conformity and benevolence and lower in self-direction, achievement, stimulation and hedonism than left-wing and centre voters. Voters' political party preferences were associated with distinct value profiles. According to the results of the research, voters' personal values can be important for understanding and predicting voting behavior.
The aim of this study was to compare personality profiles of groups of voters varying in ideological and political preferences. A six-dimensional model of personality (HEXACO) and lexical approach to the study of personality structure were used. The results showed that lower Agreeableness and higher Conscientiousness distinguished right-wing voters from other groups. Lower Extraversion characterized the group of voters who did not establish their ideological preferences. The group of centrist voters did not show distinct individuality in respect to personality. Personality traits distinguishing supporters of PiS are characteristic of right-wing voters and traits distinguishing supporters of PO are characteristic of left-wind voters but both groups of voters were similar in relatively high Conscientiousness. The results of the research showed some personality traits which characterized supporters of PSL, RP and SLD.
In recent years, there has been increasing interest in phenomenon of poor political activity among young adults, manifested in large percentage of non-voters and politically non-engaged individuals. The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between voting behaviour and political preferences of young adults and their hierarchy of basic personal values, global subjective happiness and evaluations of fair and unfair treatment in social exchange. The results of the study indicate firstly, that the most important values were power, conformity and tradition, secondly, that the non-voters evaluated hedonism lower and security higher than the voters and thirdly, that value profiles for five groups of voters differed in preferences of conformity, tradition, security and hedonism. There were no significant differences between voters and non-voters in respect of global subjective happiness and evaluations of fair and unfair treatment. However, significant differences in these variables occured between electorates of specified political parties. The findings of the current research provide a psychological characteristic of young adults in terms of basic values, subjective happiness and perception of unfairness, allowing also to identify some of the possible indicators of poor political activity in this group.
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