Researchers frequently claim that personality traits, measured using the Ten Item Personality Inventory (TIPI) battery, affect Americans’ political attitudes and behaviors. Such studies often depend on two key assumptions: personality measurements display stability over time and predate political behaviors of interest. In this paper we employ new panel survey data to test these assumptions. First, we find modest levels of TIPI variability over time. Second, we associate an individual’s self-reported personality not only with socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, but also, and more concerning, variability in her political attitudes. While the stability of the TIPI instrument is encouraging, the association between politics and the TIPI instrument suggests that TIPI may vary in response to political events.

中文翻译：

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人格稳定性与政治态度的动态关系

研究人员经常声称，使用十项人格量表 (TIPI) 电池衡量的人格特质会影响美国人的政治态度和行为。此类研究通常依赖于两个关键假设：人格测量随着时间的推移表现出稳定性，并且早于感兴趣的政治行为。在本文中，我们采用新的面板调查数据来检验这些假设。首先，我们发现 TIPI 随时间变化的适度水平。其次，我们不仅将个人自我报告的人格与社会经济和人口特征联系起来，而且还将更令人担忧的是，她的政治态度的可变性。虽然 TIPI 工具的稳定性令人鼓舞，但政治与 TIPI 工具之间的关联表明 TIPI 可能会因政治事件而异。