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In this article, we evaluate the psychological basis of different forms of volunteering. To date, our knowledge about the relationship between personality and volunteering as an important facet of the social fabric is limited. Applying the Five-Factor Model of Personality (Big Five), we scrutinize this relationship in a comprehensive manner. We consider formal and informal volunteering as well as online volunteering as a new form of social participation. Empirically, we analyze a representative population sample of Switzerland using logistic regression models. We find that extraversion is the most consistent driver of volunteering. The effects of the remaining traits differ across the forms of volunteering. Additional analyses indicate that situational factors may moderate these relationships.

In this article, we evaluate the psychological basis of different forms of volunteering. To date, our knowledge about the relationship between personality and volunteering as an important facet of the social fabric is limited. Applying the Five-Factor Model of Personality (Big Five), we scrutinize this relationship in a comprehensive manner. We consider formal and informal volunteering as well as online volunteering as a new form of social participation. Empirically, we analyze a representative population sample of Switzerland using logistic regression models. We find that extraversion is the most consistent driver of volunteering. The effects of the remaining traits differ across the forms of volunteering. additional analyses indicate that situational factors may moderate these relationships.

AbstractBuilding on a growing literature concerned with the link between psychological dispositions and political protest behavior, we argue that this relationship is not universal, but rather depends on contextual factors. Political context factors are able to alter the meaning and understanding of participatory repertoires. This, in turn, leads to differential effects of personality on participation. We argue that direct democracy constitutes such a political context that can act as moderating factor with regard to protest participation. In order to test this interaction between person and situation empirically, we conduct a subnational comparative analysis of the Swiss cantons. Hierarchical regression models reveal that the personality traits openness to experience and extraversion affect protest behavior directly. Most importantly, however, the link between openness to experience and protest participation is significantly moderated by direct democracy. This provides evidence for variance in the situational expression of personality traits.

Political consumerism is currently one of the most prevalent forms of non-institutionalized political engagement in Western democracies. This article aims to understand its psychological roots. We expect interindividual differences in psychological dispositions to be particularly relevant for political consumerism due to the individualized and cause-oriented nature of this form of political action. Our empirical evidence supports this claim: Open people favour, and conscientious people avoid, boycotting and buycotting. Agreeable persons tend to avoid boycotting in particular. These relationships persist even when political and social attitudes are controlled for. Thus, we show that psychological factors play an important role in shaping politically conscious consumption behaviour. At the same time, our study points out that personality profiles vary across different forms of political consumerism and modes of political action more generally. The characteristics of the diverse modes may help to understand this variation.

A key question regarding the ongoing process of digitalization is whether it enables societies to overcome patterns of inequality or whether these patterns are fostered in the digital sphere. The article addresses this question for the case of online volunteering by examining the profiles of online and offline volunteers in terms of sociodemographics, resources, networks, and psychological engagement. We apply quantitative methods using a unique data set that provides comprehensive information on online volunteering. Our results suggest that two mechanisms are at work simultaneously: mobilization and reinforcement. The profile of "pure" online volunteers differs from the profile of "pure" offline volunteers (mobilization). Meanwhile, the hybrid type combining online and offline volunteering attracts individuals resembling offline (reinforcement) and online volunteers (mobilization). Thus, online volunteering seems to be both: a remedy for existing inequalities in volunteering and a way to reinforce existing patterns of social participation in increasingly digitized societies.

Direct democracy plays a prominent role in the explanation of institutional trust. To date, however, empirical findings on the effects of direct democracy remain inconclusive. In this article, we argue that this inconclusiveness can be partly ascribed to the diverse effects direct democracy has on individuals. In other words, direct democracy influences institutional trust, but how and to what degree depends on individuals' personality traits. Running hierarchical analyses of unique survey data from a random sample of eligible Swiss voters, we document three findings: First, we show that the number of ballot measures is not directly associated with institutional trust. Second, we demonstrate that the Big Five personality traits affect the propensity to trust. Third, some of these traits also alter the relationship between direct democracy and institutional trust, suggesting that certain personality types are more likely to be sensitive to popular votes than others and that not everyone is equally likely to respond to political stimuli, even in highly democratic environments.

This paper scrutinizes the impact of intolerance toward diverse ethnic, religious, and cultural groups on an individual's willingness to actively engage in non-violent protest. Following new insights, we examine the individual as well as the ecological effect of social intolerance on protest behavior. Drawing from insights of social psychology and communication science, we expect that the prevalence of intolerance reinforces the positive effect of individual-level intolerance on protest participation. From a rational choice perspective, however, a negative moderating effect is expected, as the expression of opinions becomes redundant for intolerant individuals in an intolerant society. We base our multilevel analyses on data from theWorld Values Surveyscovering 32 established democracies. Our results reveal that intolerance leads to more non-violent protest participation. This relationship, however, is strongly influenced by the prevalence of intolerance in a country.

AbstractThe paper analyzes the link between personality traits and attitudes of Swiss citizens toward equal opportunities for immigrants. In particular, we examine the extent to which this relationship is moderated by the socio‐structural context. We test the assumption that the direct links between personality traits and attitudes toward equal opportunities are strengthened by perceived ethnic diversity. Based on our empirical analyses, we are able to replicate central findings of the research on personality traits and attitudes toward immigrants for the Swiss context. While openness toward experience and agreeableness are positively related to a preference for equal opportunities, conscientiousness is negatively linked to these attitudes. Furthermore, our results reveal that the link between conscientiousness and attitudes toward equal opportunities is significantly moderated by the perceived share of foreigners in the neighborhood. This finding is especially relevant for future research on the effects of personality traits.

We respond to the critique of our article (Ackermann and Traunmuller 2014) and argue that theories of the declining importance of social-structural characteristics for voting behavior are misguided. Instead we are interested in the more substantial question of how and under what conditions they become politically salient. This theoretical perspective opens up the view for regional and temporal variation in social influence processes that is at odds with traditional views of cleavage-voting. We support our argument by demonstrating that social contexts are more important for individual voting behavior today than decades ago. We conclude by discussing several implications for the study of social context effects on political behavior. Adapted from the source document.