IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tse/iastwp/28215.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

More than a Feeling: Personality and Congressional Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Hollibaugh, Gary E.
  • Klingler, Jonathan
  • Ramey, Adam

Abstract

Political scientists have long considered the primacy of ideology, party affiliation, and constituency preferences in determining how members of the U.S. Congress make decisions. At the same time, psychologists have held that individuals' immutable personality traits play a central role in individual decision-making. In this paper, we seek to bridge these literatures by offering a rational-choice based characterization of how personality informs legislator decision-making, independently of policy preferences. Specifically, we provide an decision-theoretic grounding for the "Big Five'' personality model and identify how different personality traits affect the legislative behavior -- broadly defined -- of members of Congress. We apply recent advances in computer science to estimate personality across each of the "Big Five" dimensions using speeches recorded in the Congressional Record. In particular, we use Support Vector Machines (SVM) models to connect linguistic cues in legislator speech with known personality correlates of those cues. These results in hand, we study how legislators personality traits affect their behavior in Congress. Our results are substantively fascinating and a significant contribution to the discipline, as they show that personality has a strong relationship with legislator behavior -- even after controlling for legislator ideology.

Suggested Citation

  • Hollibaugh, Gary E. & Klingler, Jonathan & Ramey, Adam, 2014. "More than a Feeling: Personality and Congressional Behavior," IAST Working Papers 14-09, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    • Handle: RePEc:tse:iastwp:28215
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://iast.fr/pub/28215
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.iast.fr/sites/default/files/IAST/wp/ramey-morethanafeeling-fullpaper.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary Charness & Matthew Rabin, 2002. "Understanding Social Preferences with Simple Tests," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(3), pages 817-869.
    2. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2010. "Are Risk Aversion and Impatience Related to Cognitive Ability?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 1238-1260, June.
    3. Lex Borghans & Bart H. H. Golsteyn & James J. Heckman & Huub Meijers, 2009. "Gender Differences in Risk Aversion and Ambiguity Aversion," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 649-658, 04-05.
    4. Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & David Huffman & Uwe Sunde, 2008. "Representative Trust And Reciprocity: Prevalence And Determinants," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 46(1), pages 84-90, January.
    5. Mondak, Jeffery J. & Hibbing, Matthew V. & Canache, Damarys & Seligson, Mitchell A. & Anderson, Mary R., 2010. "Personality and Civic Engagement: An Integrative Framework for the Study of Trait Effects on Political Behavior," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 104(1), pages 85-110, February.
    6. HUBER, JOHN D. & McCARTY, NOLAN, 2004. "Bureaucratic Capacity, Delegation, and Political Reform," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 98(3), pages 481-494, August.
    7. Michael Daly & Liam Delaney & Colm P. Harmon, 2009. "Psychological and Biological Foundations of Time Preference," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 7(2-3), pages 659-669, 04-05.
    8. Rustichini, Aldo & DeYoung, Colin G. & Anderson, Jon E. & Burks, Stephen V., 2012. "Toward the Integration of Personality Theory and Decision Theory in the Explanation of Economic and Health Behavior," IZA Discussion Papers 6750, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. Lex Borghans & Bart H.H. Golsteyn & James J. Heckman & Huub Meijers, 2009. "Gender Differences in Risk Aversion and Ambiguity," Working Papers 200903, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    10. Ben-Ner, Avner & Kramer, Amit & Levy, Ori, 2008. "Economic and hypothetical dictator game experiments: Incentive effects at the individual level," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 1775-1784, October.
    11. Groseclose, Tim & Levitt, Steven D. & Snyder, James M., 1999. "Comparing Interest Group Scores across Time and Chambers: Adjusted ADA Scores for the U.S. Congress," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(1), pages 33-50, March.
    12. Laurel Harbridge & Neil Malhotra, 2011. "Electoral Incentives and Partisan Conflict in Congress: Evidence from Survey Experiments," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(3), pages 494-510, July.
    13. Sean Gailmard & John W. Patty, 2007. "Slackers and Zealots: Civil Service, Policy Discretion, and Bureaucratic Expertise," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 51(4), pages 873-889, 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. Anke Becker & Thomas Deckers & Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & Fabian Kosse, 2012. "The Relationship Between Economic Preferences and Psychological Personality Measures," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 453-478, July.
    2. Almlund, Mathilde & Duckworth, Angela Lee & Heckman, James & Kautz, Tim, 2011. "Personality Psychology and Economics," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 1-181, Elsevier.
    3. Montizaan, Raymond M. & Vendrik, Maarten C.M., 2014. "Misery Loves Company: Exogenous shocks in retirement expectations and social comparison effects on subjective well-being," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 1-26.
    4. Anke Becker & Thomas Deckers & Thomas Dohmen & Armin Falk & Fabian Kosse, 2012. "The Relationship Between Economic Preferences and Psychological Personality Measures," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 453-478, July.
    5. Giuseppe Albanese & Guido de Blasio & Paolo Sestito, 2017. "Trust, risk and time preferences: evidence from survey data," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 64(4), pages 367-388, December.
    6. Heckman, James J., 2011. "Integrating Personality Psychology into Economics," IZA Discussion Papers 5950, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Cueva, Carlos & Iturbe-Ormaetxe, Iñigo & Mata-Pérez, Esther & Ponti, Giovanni & Sartarelli, Marcello & Yu, Haihan & Zhukova, Vita, 2016. "Cognitive (ir)reflection: New experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 81-93.
    8. Zexuan Wang & Ismaël Rafaï & Marc Willinger, 2023. "Does age affect the relation between risk and time preferences? Evidence from a representative sample," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 90(2), pages 341-368, October.
    9. Gow, Ian D. & Kaplan, Steven N. & Larcker, David F. & Zakolyukina, Anastasia A., 2016. "CEO Personality and Firm Policies," Research Papers 3444, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    10. Hannes Lang & Gregory DeAngelo & Michelle Bongard, 2018. "Theory of Mind and General Intelligence in Dictator and Ultimatum Games," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-22, March.
    11. Gensowski, Miriam & Gørtz, Mette & Schurer, Stefanie, 2021. "Inequality in personality over the life cycle," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 46-77.
    12. Nolan, Anne & Whelan, Adele & McGuinness, Seamus & Maître, Bertrand, 2019. "Gender, pensions and income in retirement," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS87, June.
    13. Piovesan, Marco & Willadsen, Helene, 2021. "Risk preferences and personality traits in children and adolescents," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 186(C), pages 523-532.
    14. Giuseppe Albanese & Guido de Blasio & Paolo Sestito, 2013. "Trust and preferences: evidence from survey data," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 911, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    15. Prokosheva, Sasha, 2016. "Comparing decisions under compound risk and ambiguity: The importance of cognitive skills," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 94-105.
    16. LEE SunYoun & OHTAKE Fumio, 2014. "The Effects of Personality Traits and Behavioral Characteristics on Schooling, Earnings, and Career Promotion," Discussion papers 14023, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    17. David Schröder & Gail Gilboa Freedman, 2020. "Decision making under uncertainty: the relation between economic preferences and psychological personality traits," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 89(1), pages 61-83, July.
    18. Becchetti, Leonardo & Degli Antoni, Giacomo & Ottone, Stefania & Solferino, Nazaria, 2013. "Allocation criteria under task performance: The gendered preference for protection," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 96-111.
    19. Dasgupta, Utteeyo & Gangadharan, Lata & Maitra, Pushkar & Mani, Subha, 2017. "Searching for preference stability in a state dependent world," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 17-32.
    20. Sutter, Matthias & Zoller, Claudia & Glätzle-Rützler, Daniela, 2019. "Economic behavior of children and adolescents – A first survey of experimental economics results," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 98-121.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    personality; congress; machine learning; legislative politics; polarization;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • C1 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General
    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:tse:iastwp:28215. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iasttfr.html .

    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.