Conservatism: “An Instinct, Not an Idea”
9th March 2024
Sir Roger Scruton suggested that “conservatism is more of an instinct than an idea.” Apparently, what he meant was that conservatism was not primarily a construct of intellectuals, but something that comes from our natural human dispositions.
Scruton’s insight seems to be corroborated by research on the connection between human personality and political ideology. Psychologists have identified correlations between certain personality traits and ideological and political preferences. These findings suggest that there is a lot in the conservatism-progressivism divide that results from differences in personality traits.
A leading approach to the study of human personality today, called The Big Five, identifies five dimensions of the human personality: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and emotional stability (or, conversely, neuroticism). Researchers interested in assessing the extent to which differences in personality affect ideological inclinations and political choices seek to identify possible associations of these five personality traits with specific political ideologies.