Research Feed

Wilson and Calanchini (2026) examined how cultural tightness — the strength of social norms and intolerance of deviance — predicts personality at regional levels. Across U.S. states, tighter regions scored higher in conscientiousness and lower in openness. Cross-nationally (56 countries), tighter nations scored lower in extraversion and the creativity facet of openness. Agreeableness, neuroticism, and most conscientiousness facets showed no consistent relationships with tightness.

Using a 2022 survey of 1,306 U.S. federal bureaucrats, this study examines how Big Five personality traits shape perceptions of agency politicization. Neuroticism is the standout finding: more neurotic employees are significantly more sensitive to formal politicization, perceiving greater appointee influence. Conscientiousness shows weaker, mixed effects; Openness, Extraversion, and Agreeableness show no consistent moderating role.

This research explores the 'personalization' of modern politics, where the individual traits of both voters and candidates drive political choice. The authors propose a congruency model, finding that voters prefer candidates whose personalities align with party ideology or mirror their own traits. Ultimately, political choice is a psychological matching process where voters seek leaders who reflect their own internal values and self-identity.

This research identifies five robust dimensions of spirituality that constitute the Expressions of Spirituality Inventory (ESI): Cognitive Orientation, Experiential/Phenomenological, Existential Well-Being, Paranormal Beliefs, and Religiousness. While these dimensions correlate differentially with the Big Five, they remain conceptually unique. This suggests that spirituality represents a significant domain of human personality that is not fully captured by the standard Five-Factor Model framework.