Who Took the Burden to Answer on the Meaning of Left and
Right?
Response Behaviour on an Open-ended Question
Cornelia Zuell and Evi Scholz
Cornelia Zuell, GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Survey Design and
Methodology, P. O. Box 122155, 68072 Mannheim, Germany, Phone: +496211246147, Fax:
+491246283177, email: cornelia.zuell@gesis.org
Evi Scholz, GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, Monitoring Society and Social
Change, P. O. Box 122155, 68072 Mannheim, Germany, Phone: +496211246283, Fax:
+491246283177, email: evi.scholz@gesis.org
Abstract
In ALLBUS 2008 the self-placement on a left-right scale was asked as an indicator for ideological
self-identification. To learn more about the interpretation of the scale by the respondents, two openended questions on the meaning of left and right were asked. Who are the respondents who took the
burden to answer them? We assume that various aspects influence the response behaviour: cognitive
abilities, motivation, personality traits, and the response to the left-right self-placement.
Analyses of the influence of these aspects is done by logistic regression. In summary, there are two
aspects that mainly influence response behaviour: Cognitive abilities and the response to the left right
self-placement. Other aspects like personality and motivation proved to have less explanatory power.
1
Who Took the Burden to Answer on the Meaning of Left and
Right?
Response Behaviour on an Open-ended Question
1.
Introduction
The left-right dimension is a central element of political science research. It plays an essential
role in all sorts of analyses and studies, theoretical or empirical, analytical or descriptive, case
study or comparative. It is “generally seen as an instrument that citizens can use to orient
themselves in a complex political world” (Fuchs & Klingemann, 1990b:203) and thus
facilitates political orientation and decision-making processes by condensing political
contents and applying simple decision-making rules (Corbetta et al., 2009; Fuchs &
Klingemann, 1990b; Inglehart & Klingemann, 1976).
Over the last years some researchers have argued that the left-right divide looses its
structuring power to summarize political differences (see, for example, Converse, 2000).
Other researchers argue differently: Mair (2007), for example, recently claimed that the leftright distinction still makes sense by reducing the complexity of political reality for voters.
The left-right dimension is still the most relevant for party competition; and content analyses
continue to identify some form of left-right dimension in parties’ programs (Mair, 2007: 20811).
Many researchers agree that left-right is able to alter its meaning in response to the context of
socio-political conflict. This finding is often based on analyses of responses to open-ended
2
questions about the meaning of left and right included in general population surveys.1
Analyses show that the meaning of left and right varies over time, between different groups
of political actors, or between countries (cf. e.g. Inglehart, 1977, 1990)). However, while the
meaning of left-right have changed over time, left-right still remains the simplifying device
for political information and communication (Fuchs & Klingemann, 1990b), whatever it is
that the contrast between left and right encapsulates.
Recent studies again explore the content of left and right by means of open-ended questions
asking the surveys’ respondents about their understanding of the meaning of left and right.
Before substantive analyses of respondents’ ideas about the meaning of left and right in
political terms will start, analysis of the overall response behaviour is recommended: Who is
willing to answer the open-ended and quite complicated questions on the meaning of left and
right? Are there any indicators that systematically influence whether respondents answer? If
yes, can we expect this special kind of bias to influence the substance of the answers? While
a considerable amount of item-nonresponse will already raise doubts about the value of the
data, biased answers will contribute to quality concerns, too.
The cognitive process associated with answering survey questions is general accepted (see
Krosnick, 1999; Schwarz & Strack, 1985; Tourangeau & Rasinski, 1988). The process
includes three steps. In the first step, the respondent must understand and interpret the
question and deduce its intend. Then, relevant information must retrieved. In the last step, the
information must be translated into an answer. Although this cognitive process is mostly
described for closed questions, we suppose that it works for open-ended questions in a
comparable way: The respondent has to understand the question, retrieve the information and
note the adequate information.
1
E.g., in Germany in the Political Action surveys of 1974 and 1980 (Fuchs & Klingemann, 1990a) and their
replications in the ISSP 90-plus and Sozialwissenschaften-Bus 1997 and 1998 studies (Bauer-Kaase, 2001).
3
However, former research has shown that much more respondents answer closed questions
than open-ended questions (see for example, Andrews, 2004; Borg et al., 2007). The focus of
this paper will address the characteristics of respondents who took the burden to answer the
open-ended questions under consideration.
2.
The Data
The study where response behaviour on the open-ended questions on the meaning of left and
right is analysed is the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) 2008.
The ALLBUS is a biennial population survey conducted since 1980 as face-to-face
interviews in Germany. The survey programme of each ALLBUS survey focuses on some
main topics; every ALLBUS survey in addition includes detailed background questions about
the respondent and his or her partner.
The main topics of the political science based ALLBUS 2008 were the use of media; political
attitudes such as political interest; political participation such as participation in elections,
party work, citizens’ initiatives; the frequency of political discussion with family, friends,
acquaintances or others; attitudes towards the political system or social inequality; and
national pride.
The target population are adults – aged 18 and above – of any nationality, residing in
Germany and living in a private accommodation.2 The study is designed as a two stage
random sample. In the first step there is a random selection of communities/sample points. In
a second step, there is a random sample of persons officially registered at their first place of
2
Persons without adequate understanding of German are not interviewed and reported as “inadequate
understanding of language of survey” in the ALLBUS 2008 methods report (Wasmer et al., 2010): 1.6% of the
adjusted gross sample).
4
residence (Einwohnermelderegister-Stichprobe). Data collection period was March to August
2008, the total response rate was 40%.
In ALLBUS 2008 the question on the meaning of left and right directly follows the left-right
self-placement. The question wording is displayed in figure 1.
Figure 1 about here
Since the topic of our investigation is on politics, we concentrated on the German
respondents in the study (n=3247) where at least a minimum knowledge about German
politics and the German political system can be expected. Foreigners (e.g. respondents
without German citizenship) are excluded from the following analyses (n=222).
About 80% of the respondents answered at least one of the two open-ended questions on the
meaning of left and right (table 1).
Table 1 about here
3.
Reasons for Answering the Open-ended Question
Answering an open ended-question is a high burden for a respondent, especially the third step
of the answering process, the translation of the information into an answer and to note the
answer. Even so, Geer (1988) reported that most people are able to articulate an adequate
answer.
Former research investigated the question of who is willing to make the effort to answer
open-ended questions and reported that one main reason for answering open ended-questions
is the interest in the topic of the survey and the survey questions. Geer (1988) analyzed the
answering behaviour to the open-ended questions in the US National Election Studies. He
found that most respondents answered at least some of the open-ended questions.
5
Respondents’ education seem to play a minor role in answering the open-ended questions.
Similar findings are reported by Holland & Christian (2009). They investigated open-ended
questions in a student web survey and their interest in Latin American and Caribbean studies.
They found that respondents interested in the topic more often answered the open-ended
questions and gave longer answers.
Own research has addressed item non-response in the open-ended question on the meaning of
left and right (Scholz & Zuell, under review). In our study one of the main reasons for nonresponse in the open-ended question on the meaning of left and right is the left-right selfplacement. We found that cognitive abilities (formal education and political knowledge),
interest in politics and political participation as indicators of motivation also add some
explanatory power to non-response. The most explanatory power in the model is produced by
cognitive abilities and left-right self-placement.
In this paper we will investigate whether response behaviour on open-ended questions in
general is, on the one hand, influenced by cognitive abilities, motivation to answer, and by
personality traits, and on the other hand by the content and properties of the question itself.
3.1
Cognitive Abilities: Education, Political Knowledge, and Socialisation
Background
Following the findings of Beatty & Herrmann (2002) that the first reason for not answering a
question is a cognitive reason – the respondent is not able to answer – the response rate on
the open-ended questions on the meaning of left and right should be influenced by cognitive
abilities. We turn the assumption around and assume that the first reason for answering is a
cognitive one: The respondent is able to answer. Cognitive abilities refer to capacities to
remember and apply relevant information to response tasks.
6
Rammstedt & Kemper (2011) clarify the link between cognitive and verbal abilities, Messick
& Frederiksen (1958), especially reading abilities: the burden to read question texts are
assumed to be higher for respondents with low cognitive abilities than for those with high
cognitive abilities. According to Goldberg (1963) education is related to individual
vocabulary, verbal comprehension skills, and clear self-concepts. Thus, relatively low
educated persons with low cognitive abilities may be more uncertain in answering survey
questions. In our present research we apply a broader definition and use three different
aspects of cognitive abilities: general education, political knowledge and political
socialisation.
Generally well educated respondents can, at least, estimate the information needed to answer
from their memory. Politically well educated respondents can retrieve information on
questions about politics with minimal efforts. We assume that education and political
knowledge play an important role for answering the open-ended question on the meaning of
left and right.
In addition to these aspects of cognitive abilities we use “political socialisation” since we
assume that political education in German respondent’s early youth makes a difference, e.g.
whether they are grown up in the former socialist part of the country or not. Respondents
grown up in the Eastern part of Germany (the former GDR) are socialised and politically
educated differently than respondents originating in the Western part of Germany. Children
in the GDR had usually visited a kindergarden where one of the main goals was the political
education in the sense of socialism (Fuchs, 1997). In this way, already young children have
learned much about politics, resulting in a higher knowledge and, in terms of quantity, in a
better response behaviour with respect to the open-ended questions on the meaning of left and
right – but not taking into account whether and how much the answer fits into theoretical
concepts of left and right.
7
Therefore, our first hypothesis is, that education, political knowledge and socialisation are
explanatory indicators of response behaviour for open-ended questions on the meaning of left
and right. If the reason for answering the questions on the meaning of left and right is a
cognitive one and respondents are able to answer, we assume that both education and
political knowledge is high or respondents are socialised in the GDR.
Indicator for educational attainment in ALLBUS 2008 is the general school leaving
certificate and the vocational or professional training respondents have. For our analytical
purposes we decided to create a quite crude dummy variable to distinguish between
respondents with university entry requirement from those without3.
Political knowledge in ALLBUS 2008 is not measured by subjective self-assessment but by
objective political competence. Respondents were asked to complete a quiz of 17 items. To
ease responding and to limit the level of expected non-response, CASI mode was applied for
this political quiz instead of the usual ALLBUS face-to-face interview mode; to reduce
guessing the quiz is introduced by explanatory information that some of the items are more
difficult than others and that don’t know is an acceptable answer (for details on the design see
Wasmer et al., 2010: 22-3). The quiz items cover different aspects of political knowledge and
combine factual knowledge with comprehension of political actors, contents, structures, rules
or functionality of politics and the political system in Germany.4
3
We collapsed those who reported “no school leaving certificate”, “lowest formal qualification” and
“intermediary secondary education” and those with a “polytechnical college entry qualification” or a “university
entry qualification” each into one category.
4
For our purpose, the number of correct answers to all quiz items is counted (count from 0 to 17) and then
transferred into a scale of German school marks running from 1 (high knowledge) to 6 (low knowledge),
collapsing the counts 15-17, 12-14, 9-11, 6-8, 3-5, and 0-2 into the corresponding marks.
8
The third aspect of cognitive abilities is socialisation background. We use the item “where
did you live for most of your childhood and adolescence” as an indicator for political
socialisation and create a dummy on “growing up in the GDR”.
3.2
Motivational Aspects: Political Interest and Willingness to
Participate in the Survey
In psychology, motivation is generally seen as an internal state or condition (in other words a
need, desire, or want). Motivation gives behaviour a start, energy and direction (Huitt, 2001).
Motivational aspects of answering behaviour in the context of political attitudes and
behaviour is reflected, in the first place, in general political interest. Political interest and
response behaviour should be positively correlated.
Geer (1988), in a study about candidates and parties, showed that almost all respondents are
able to respond to open-ended questions. He found that item response behaviour was less
influenced by formal education but highly by interest in politics, the topic of the study.
Similar findings are reported by Holland & Christian (2009) based on open-ended questions
in a web based survey. In the same way, Groves et al. ( 2004) found that respondents who
report more interest in the survey’s topic gave about 40% more answers to any question than
those who are less interested in the topic.
If interest in the subject matters – according to (Groves et al., 2004) – then interest in politics
should matter when it comes to responding to questions on politics and response behaviour
should vary according to the level of political interest. Thus respondents with higher scores
on the political interest scale should answer the open-ended questions more often than
respondents with less or no political interest and vice versa.
A second motivational aspect – not yet used to describe response behaviour on open-ended
questions is the level of willingness to participate in the survey in general. Reluctance in
9
survey participation is assumed to be transferred into reluctant response behaviour to the
open-ended questions. Therefore, we will test two further hypotheses: Politically interested
respondents answer the open-ended questions more often than respondents not interested in
politics. Additionally, respondents who are more cooperative in terms of general willingness
to be interviewed answer the open-ended questions more often than respondents who are less
cooperative.
The motivational aspects of response behaviour that can be covered by our data are general
political interest and the general willingness to participate in the survey: ALLBUS 2008 as a
study focusing on political attitudes and behaviour also asks respondents about their interest
in politics using a five-point scale running from very strong interest to no political interest at
all. For analytical purposes we collapsed the answer categories “strongly” and “very
strongly” and the answer categories “very little” and “not at all”, each into one category. The
level of willingness to participate in the survey was answered by the interviewers. After the
interview has been finished, interviewers had to describe the interview situation (for example
the living environment of the respondent, or the accessibility of the respondent) and to assess
the willingness to participate.
3.3.
Personality Traits
Besides cognitive and motivational aspects, the personality of the respondents is assumed to
influence the response behaviour. Over the last two decades, the Big-Five factors have
become the most prominent model to describe human personality traits (Rammstedt & John,
2007). The five factors both found in content analyses of psychological literature and in
survey data analyses are extraversion, openness, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and
neuroticism.
10
Extraversion is characterized by positive emotions and the tendency to seek stimulation and
the company of others. This trait is marked by pronounced engagement with the external
world: Extraverts enjoy being with people, tend to be enthusiastic and action-oriented
individuals and are often perceived as full of energy.
Openness means a general appreciation of art, emotion, adventure, unusual ideas,
imagination, curiosity, and variety of experiences. This trait distinguishes imaginative people
from down-to-earth, conventional people. People who are open to experience are sensitive to
beauty and intellectually curious.
Conscientiousness is the tendency to be disciplined, to act dutifully, and to aim for
achievement. This trait influences the way in which we control, regulate, and direct our
impulses. People who are conscientious show a preference for planned rather than
spontaneous behaviour.
Agreeableness is the tendency to be compassionate and cooperative rather than suspicious
and antagonistic towards others. This trait reflects a general concern for social harmony.
People who are agreeable tend to avoid disputes or conflicts.
Neuroticism is the tendency to experience negative emotions, such as anger, anxiety, or
depression. People who are neurotic usually are emotionally instable.
We assume that these personality traits influence response behaviour. Curious respondents,
full of positive energy and searching for stimulation are expected to answer the open-ended
question more often than respondents less involved in the social word. Similarly,
conscientious respondents used to get a job done in a disciplined way, should also answer
open-ended questions more often than respondents without pronounced trait of
conscientiousness. Additionally, we expect that respondents with a tendency to cooperate and
to be compassionate will answer the open-ended questions more often in a situation of
11
cooperation with an interviewer than respondents without such a tendency. On the other
hand, a tendency to negative emotions should not influence response behaviour positively.
Due to these assumptions our hypothesis is that the personality traits extraversion,
agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness will result in more answers to the open-ended
questions. Whereas the personality trait neuroticism will have no positive effect on
respondent behaviour.
In ALLBUS 2008 the Big Five personality traits were collected following the proposal of
Rammstedt & John (2007) including two self-rating items per each factor, one keyed in the
positive and one in the negative direction (see table 2). The Big Five have been replicated
across different studies. However, since personality research is still largely based on the
typical ‘‘psych 100” student samples, the assumed five-factor structure may not hold in
general population surveys. Indeed, several researchers investigating the Big Five in other
than undergraduate samples while using standardized and well-established inventories found
that the five-factor structure did not replicate in their data sets (e.g., Körner et al., 2002; Lang
et al., 2001). Rammstedt et al. (2010) propose to correct for acquiescence response tendencies
in general population samples. The idea is to get a measure that takes respondents’ individual
use of scales into account and adjust individual response scores: first compute each
individual’s mean over all items, then subtract that mean from each response score, and
finally analyze these ‘‘deviation” scores. In students’ samples, an acquiescence response
tendencies is usually not observed, while in general population samples, this response bias
actually occurs.
After correction for acquiescence bias the resulting data shows the expected five factor
structure also for ALLBUS 2008 (table 2) and the five factors can be used as indicators for
personality traits in our analyses.
12
Table 2 about here
3.4
Left-Right Self-Placement
Left-right self-placement on a uni-dimensional scale is one of the standard questions in many
social and political surveys to measure respondents’ political orientation in a minimalist way.
Usually the scales have got the labelled endpoints “left” and “right” and a number of
categories in between to allow for differentiating the degree of left-right assessment. The
exact number of scale points varies due to various reasons. Aspects taken into consideration
while designing the left-right self-placement scale are the context of the question, the
tradition of asking the scale, and methodological aspects such as offering a midpoint or a
“can’t choose” category (Kroh, 2005). A “can’t choose” category is often seen as easy escape
option to avoid responding questions difficult to answer. Midpoints, sometimes work as
hidden escape category, especially for larger scales where a clear non-response option is
missing. However, hidden item nonresponse and middle substantive answers are difficult to
disentangle. We assume that hidden nonresponse is mainly concentrated at the middle of the
scale and that other scale points can be understood as “true”.
We expect respondents with clear ideas on left and right to place themselves on the scale. The
answers to the open-ended questions on the meaning of left and right should reflect this
attitudes in the left-right self-placement. We assume that respondents who do place
themselves on the left-right scale are expected to answer the open-ended questions on the
meaning of left and right. Furthermore, we assume that respondents who place themselves at
non-middle categories of the scale are those with a higher level in responses on the openended questions in contrast to respondents who place themselves close to the middle
categories.
13
4.
Reasons for Response Behaviour: Summarized Effects of What
Actually Matters in the Open-Ended Questions
Since many of the indicators might be correlated we analyse the effects of the indicators used
by logistic regression to get insights which indicators produce stable effects in analytical
context with others. Response behaviour, the dependent variable, is measured dichotomously
(response in at least one of the two open-ended questions: yes or no). Cognitive abilities,
motivational aspects, personality traits, and left-right self-placement as described earlier in
the paper are our independent variables. The variables “formal education”, “political
socialisation”, “political interest”, “survey participation”, and left-right self-placement were
transferred into dummies taking into account that the variables do not have a clear linear
relation5. All variables are entered into the analyse blockwise in four steps: We start with the
three indicators on cognitive abilities, continue with complementary indicators of motivation,
add the five personality traits and finally enter the aspects related to the left-right selfplacement, too. We report β’s (and standard errors) to assess the influence of variables, and
Nagelkerke’s pseudo R squares for the model fits that can be interpreted similarly as
coefficient of determination in linear regressions running from 0 to 1.
In our interpretation of the results of the logistic regression reported in table 3, we
concentrate on the significant coefficients displayed in bold. In a first step (model 1) we have
tested the influence of cognitive abilities on response behaviour. We can find that all three
variables have a significant and clear influence on response behaviour. The negative
regression coefficient of political knowledge reflects the relation between political knowledge
and answering the open-ended questions: The higher the knowledge – reflected by lower
5
We do note assume that, for example, respondents with score 4 (very good/easy) at the question on survey
participation willingness are four times easier to persuade than respondents with score 1 where the willingness is
very bad/difficult.
14
German school marks where 1 is the best and 6 the worst – the higher is the response rate on
the open-ended questions. The explained variance of cognitive abilities on response
behaviour is 15%.
In model 2 we additionally entered motivational aspects into the analyses and found that the
effect of the cognitive abilities remains strong and shows only minor changes to the effects in
model 1. Using high political interest as reference category, low political interest shows a
highly significant negative regression coefficient whereas interest in politics at a middle level
shows a lower significant coefficient. The second variable group on motivation are the
variables about the willingness to participate in the survey at all. Here good cooperation with
the interviewer shows significant effects; cooperative respondents answer the open endedquestions more often than respondents who are less cooperative. The influence of the bad
participation groups are not significant. The explained variance increases to 18% for model 2.
In model 3, we added the variables measuring personality traits: Extraversion, agreeableness,
conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness. The significant influences already found in
model 2 are still preserved. The factor openness shows a clear effect on answering behaviour.
The other four factors do not make any significant difference with respect to answering the
open-ended questions. Our hypothesis of the influence of personality is only partially
confirmed: the factor openness plays a significant role in explaining response behaviour on
answering the open-ended questions. However, in contrast to our hypothesis, the personality
traits extraversion, agreeableness, and conscientiousness do not effect response behaviour.
The Nagelkerke’s R square (.18) do not increase compared to model 2.
In the last model we have included the left-right self-placement and the distance to the
midpoint of that scale into our regression. Again, the explained variance raises remarkably.
Both self-assessment on the left-right scale and the distance to the left-right midpoint show
15
significant effects on answering the open-ended question. We can finally explain 27% of the
variance in response behaviour on the open-ended questions on the meaning of left and right.
Table 3 about here
5.
Conclusion
Former research has shown that formal education, political knowledge, interest in politics and
left-right self-placement influence response behaviour. Our own research confirmed these
results. Additionally to these traditionally used indicators we have introduced further aspects
in the analyses of response behaviour. With respect to cognitive abilities, we found that
political socialisation – in our study grown up in the Eastern or Western part of Germany adds some explanatory power.
With respect to motivational aspects, we found that – as already known – political interest
influence response behaviour. The general willingness to participate in the survey influences
response behaviour to a minor extent. This means that there is no grave difference in
motivation to answer open-ended survey questions between respondent easy to convince to
participate in the survey and those who were hardly to motivate. If a respondent has finally
agreed to participate there is no correlation between the data quality of the open-ended
questions and the efforts necessary to convince the respondent to participate. If respondents
can be convinced to serve as survey respondents their answers are not worse than enthusiastic
survey participants.
Personality traits are basic characteristics, mostly invariant and influential for the explanation
of attitudes and behaviour. However, we found that only one of the traits (openness) has an
impact on response behaviour but without increase in the explained variance. And finally, we
16
found that the left-right self-placement of the respondent plays a role for answering left-right
self-placement.
The results presented in this paper show that, first, the influences found are more or less
stable and not touched by the variables analyzed in context of the regression analyses.
Given the results of our analyses, the data of the open-ended questions on the meaning of left
and right are biased. Due to the bias, the data should not serve to describe the German
population’s ideological position in general. However, the reasonable use of data always
depends on the focus of analyses. So, if the bias is taken into account; then group-specific
analyses of the open-ended questions data seem appropriate where e.g. the associations with
left and right of highly educated respondents are contrasted against those of low educated
respondents.
17
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Figure 1: Question wording in ALLBUS 2008
Many people use the terms “left” and “right” when they want to describe different political views.
 INT.: Please display scale 28 and leave displayed until question F031.
Here we have a scale which runs from left to right. Thinking of your own political views, where would you place these
on this scale?
Please select one of the boxes and name the letter indicated beneath it.
Left
Right










F
A
M
O
G
Z
E
Y
I
P
Could you tell me what you associate with the term “left”?
 INT.: Record the response given precisely!
And could you tell me what you associate with the term “right”?
 INT.: Record the response given precisely!
22
Table 1: Answering on the meaning of left and right
Responses
Frequency
Percent
2608
80.4
No question answered
639
19.7
Total
3247
100.0
Open-ended question(s)
answered
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Table 2: Personality Traits: Factor Analysis
Factor and Items
Loadings
Extraversion
… is reserved
… is outgoing, sociable
-.888
.760
Neurotism
… is relaxed, handles stress well
… gets nervous easily
.899
-.749
Conscientiousness
… does a thorough job
… tends to be lazy
.816
-.848
Openness
… has an active imagination
.682
… has few artistic interests
-.938
Agreeable
… is generally trusting
… tends to find fault with others
Legend: principle components analyses; varimax rotation
-.864
.674
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Table 3: Determinants of Non-response in the Open-ended Question (figures are β’s (and
standard errors), and pseudo R squares for the model fit)
model 1
cognitive
abilities
model 2
plus motivation
model 3
model 4
plus
plus left-right
personality
selfplacement
.74*** (.13)
.62*** (.13)
.54*** (.13) .50*** (.14)
Cognitive Abilities
Uni. entry requirement
Political knowledge
Socialisation
-.41*** (.04) -.30*** (.04) -.30*** (.04) -.23*** (.04)
.77*** (.11)
.86*** (.11)
.85*** (.11) .71*** (.12)
Motivation
Political interest low1
-.94*** (.15) -.85*** (.16) -.65*** (.17)
Political interest middle1
-.30*
(.13) -.27*
(.13) -.23
(.14)
Participation good2
-.38*
(.17) -.41*
(.18) -.37*
(.18)
Participation bad2
.06
(.14)
.06
(.15) .04
(.15)
Participation very bad2
.15
(.13)
.13
(.13) .17
(.14)
Extraversion
-.01
(.05) -.01
(.05)
Agreeableness
-.04
(.05) -.03
(.05)
Conscientiousness
.08
(.05) .07
(.05)
Neuroticism
.07
(.05) .06
(.05)
Openness
-.18*** (.05) -.19*** (.05)
Personality traits
Left-right Self-Placement
No left-right self-placement
1.71*** (.17)
Distance to left-right midpoint
.22*** (.06)
Nagelkerke’s R square
.15***
.18***
.18***
.27***
Legend: (1) reference category=”political interest high or very high”; (2) reference category=”participation
very good”;
Significance: * p ≤ .05; ** p ≤ .005; *** p ≤ .001