Spatial models of vote choice assume that voters compare policy positions of parties and choose the party that best represents their personal policy preferences. Yet, this is only feasible if (a) respondents are able to locate themselves and all (major) parties on a policy scale and (b) if these policy placements actually reflect meaningful information to them. Item non response to at least one of the ideological placements thus excludes respondents from spatial models of voting. Moreover, if respondents provide answers of very poor quality, spatial models do not make sense.
In this paper, we argue that personality traits affect whether respondents can be included in a spatial model of voting. In particular, we argue that item non-response and guessing with regard to ideological preferences and perceptions is less likely among conscious and emotionally stable respondents. Our empirical analysis based on data from the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES) supports most of our hypotheses. It shows that conscientiousness and emotional stability decrease the likelihood of item non response and guessing, whereas openness to experience has a positive effect. Importantly, these results also hold after controlling for variation in the respondents’ cognitive abilities and motivation. These findings suggest that is more prevalent among more sophisticated, more interested, more conscientious and more emotionally stable voters.
