ArticleFrontiers in psychology2023
The role of personality, authoritarianism and cognition in the United Kingdom's 2016 referendum on European Union membership.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Psychometric Properties of the Authoritarian Attitude Scale in a Sample of Chilean Adolescent Students.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Does personality matter? Exploring its moderating role on the relationship between neighbourhood ethnic outgroup-size and preferences for Brexit.European societies · 2024Article
- Cognitive ability and voting behaviour in the 2016 UK referendum on European Union membership.PloS one · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
Introduction: The results of the United Kingdom's 2016 referendum on European Union (EU) membership have highlighted deep societal divides. In six studies, we examined the role of personality traits, cognition and cognitive biases in relation to referendum voters' choices. Methods: A total of 11,225 participants completed questionnaires and controlled experiments, which assessed differences in personality traits, levels of authoritarianism, numeracy, thinking styles, and susceptibility to cognitive biases including ideologically motivated numeracy and reasoning, framing, and the Dunning-Kruger effect. Results: Participants expressing an intent to vote to leave the EU reported significantly higher levels of authoritarianism and conscientiousness, and lower levels of openness and neuroticism than voters expressing an intent to vote to remain in the EU. When compared with Remain voters, Leave voters displayed significantly lower levels of numeracy and appeared more reliant on impulsive System 1 thinking. In the experimental studies, voters on both sides were found to be susceptible to the cognitive biases tested, with a general trend for Leave voters to show more bias than Remain voters. Discussion: These results raise important questions regarding the use and framing of numerical and non-numerical data for public consumption.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.