IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jscscx/v10y2021i8p309-d615627.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Role of Personality Traits, Cooperative Behaviour and Trust in Governments on the Brexit Referendum Outcome

Author

Listed:
  • Francisco J. Areal

    (Centre for Rural Economy, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU, UK)

Abstract

We analyse the role of personality traits along with individuals’ cooperative behaviour, level of trust in the UK government and the European Council (EC, the body that defines the European Union’s overall political direction and priorities) and socio-demographics on UK citizens’ voting choices on the 2016 Brexit referendum. We use data from a survey conducted in April 2019 on 530 UK citizens who voted in the 2016 Brexit referendum. We use a Probit model to investigate what role voters’ personality traits, their trust in government institutions, their level of cooperative behaviour and socio-demographics played in the way they voted. We find voters’ choice was associated voters’ personality traits. In particular, voters associated with being extraverted, acting with self-confidence and outspokenness (i.e., agency), and voters’ closeness to experience, to forming part of a diverse community and the exchange of ideas and experiences were found to be associated with voting for Brexit in the 2016 referendum. We found that voters’ willingness to cooperate with others was associated with being less likely to vote for Brexit. In addition, voters who trusted the UK government were more likely to vote for Brexit, whereas voters trusting the EC were more likely to vote for the UK to stay in the EU. We also found that voters with relatively high level of education were less likely to vote for Brexit and voters not seeking jobs were more likely to vote for Brexit than students, unemployed and retired. We conclude that incorporating personality profiles of voters, their pro-social behaviour as well as their views on trust in politicians/government institutions, along with socio-demographic variables, into individuals’ vote choice analysis can account for voter heterogeneity and provide a more complete picture of an individual’s vote choice decisions, helping to gain a better understanding of individual vote choices (e.g., better predictions of future individual vote intentions).

Suggested Citation

  • Francisco J. Areal, 2021. "The Role of Personality Traits, Cooperative Behaviour and Trust in Governments on the Brexit Referendum Outcome," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-14, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:10:y:2021:i:8:p:309-:d:615627
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/8/309/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/10/8/309/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Liberini, Federica & Oswald, Andrew J. & Proto, Eugenio & Redoano, Michela, 2019. "Was Brexit triggered by the old and unhappy? Or by financial feelings?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 287-302.
    2. Tsusaka, Takuji W. & Kajisa, Kei & Pede, Valerien O. & Aoyagi, Keitaro, 2015. "Neighborhood effects and social behavior: The case of irrigated and rainfed farmers in Bohol, the Philippines," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 227-246.
    3. Daniel Nettle & Agathe Colléony & Maria Cockerill, 2011. "Variation in Cooperative Behaviour within a Single City," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 6(10), pages 1-8, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. von Carnap-Bornheim, Tillmann, 2016. "Irrigation as a Determinant of Social Capital in India: A Large-Scale Survey Analysis," MPRA Paper 69270, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Walter Bossert & Andrew E Clark & Conchita D’Ambrosio & Anthony Lepinteur, 2023. "Economic insecurity and political preferences," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 75(3), pages 802-825.
    3. Amory Gethin & Clara Martínez-Toledano & Thomas Piketty, 2022. "Brahmin Left Versus Merchant Right: Changing Political Cleavages in 21 Western Democracies, 1948–2020," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 137(1), pages 1-48.
    4. Voigt, Stefan, 2022. "Determinant of Social Norms," ILE Working Paper Series 58, University of Hamburg, Institute of Law and Economics.
    5. Walter Bossert & Andrew E. Clark & Conchita d'Ambrosio & Anthony Lepinteur, 2019. "Economic Insecurity and the Rise of the Right," PSE Working Papers halshs-02325984, HAL.
    6. Annie Tubadji & Thomas Colwill & Don Webber, 2021. "Voting with your feet or voting for Brexit: The tale of those stuck behind," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(2), pages 247-277, April.
    7. Simon Rudkin & Lucy Barros & Paweł Dłotko & Wanling Qiu, 2024. "An economic topology of the Brexit vote," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 58(3), pages 601-618, March.
    8. Stephen Drinkwater, 2021. "Brexit and the ‘left behind’: Job polarization and the rise in support for leaving the European Union," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(6), pages 569-588, November.
    9. Alex Bryson & Andrew E. Clark & Colin P. Green, 2021. "Footsie, Yeah! Share Prices and Worker Wellbeing," DoQSS Working Papers 21-26, Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London.
    10. Smith, Steven M., 2018. "Economic incentives and conservation: Crowding-in social norms in a groundwater commons," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 147-174.
    11. Fehr, Dietmar & Rau, Hannes & Trautmann, Stefan T. & Xu, Yilong, 2020. "Inequality, fairness and social capital," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    12. Aoyagi, Keitaro & Sawada, Yasuyuki & Shoji, Masahiro, 2022. "Irrigation infrastructure and trust: Evidence from natural and lab-in-the-field experiments in rural communities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    13. Dimitris Georgarakos & Konstantinos Tatsiramos, 2019. "Monetary policy transmission to consumer financial stress and durable consumption," CESifo Working Paper Series 7671, CESifo.
    14. Sumit S. Deole & Yue Huang, 2024. "Suffering and prejudice: do negative emotions predict immigration concerns?," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 1-39, June.
    15. Drinkwater, Stephen & Blackaby, David H. & Robinson, Catherine, 2024. "What Mattered Most in the Brexit Vote? Evidence from Detailed Regression and Decomposition Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 16841, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    16. Nils Braakmann, 2021. "Immigration Status Uncertainty and Mental Health—Evidence from Brexit," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(4), pages 521-548, October.
    17. Jin Zheng & Arthur Schram & Tianle Song, 2023. "Social status and prosocial behavior," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 26(5), pages 1085-1114, November.
    18. Alan de Bromhead & Kevin Hjortshøj O'Rourke, 2024. "Should history change the way we think about populism?," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 77(3), pages 1086-1109, August.
    19. Chen, Qiao & Chen, Tong & Wang, Yongjie, 2019. "Cleverly handling the donation information can promote cooperation in public goods game," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 346(C), pages 363-373.
    20. Blackaby, David H. & Drinkwater, Stephen & Robinson, Catherine, 2020. "Regional Variations in the Brexit Vote: Causes and Potential Consequences," IZA Discussion Papers 13579, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:10:y:2021:i:8:p:309-:d:615627. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.