Hardwired to Go Negative. A Comparative Assessment of Candidates’ Personality Traits and Campaign Tone in Six European Countries

A growing body of studies shows that the reasons for competing candidates to “go negative” on their opponents during elections - that is, attacking their opponents instead of promoting their own programs or ideas - are a function of their ideological profile, competitive standings, and the nature of the electoral race. Yet, existing research has, at this stage, failed to assess to what extent candidates’ character traits also play a role. To take an obvious example, it seems natural to imagine that candidates as opposite as the bombastically extroverted Donald Trump and the shier, yet punctilious Angela Merkel do not campaign in quite the same way. Indeed, character traits have been shown to be powerful drivers of political attitudes and behaviors in both the public at large and elected officials. In this article, we bridge the gap between existing work in political psychology and political communication and study to what extent the personality traits of competing candidates are linked with their use of negative campaigning strategies. We rely on candidate surveys in six European countries: Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Greece, Portugal, and Belgium. Data includes candidates’ self-assessment of the “Big Five” personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, openness) as well as self-reported measures of their campaign tone during the last national election. Controlling for the usual suspects driving negative campaigning strategies at the candidate level, we expect that a negative tone is more likely for candidates scoring low in agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability, but high in extraversion.