The Role of Personality, Authoritarianism, Numeracy, Thinking Styles and Cognitive Biases in the United Kingdom’s 2016 Referendum on European Union Membership

This version was first published on 26th April 2017.

Between April and June 24th 2016, we conducted six studies in relation to the UK’s referendum on EU Membership and previously shared preliminary results here. In this article, we provide an update, with the final results scheduled to be written up in a paper and submitted to a journal or conference.

Introduction & Background

The United Kingdom’s 2016 referendum on European Union (EU) membership was one of the most divisive choices presented to its electorate in a generation, yet relatively few papers have explored the roles personality traits and authoritarianism play in relation to public support for European integration. Furthermore, and in the same context, no prior research exists that examines the role of numeracy, thinking styles and cognitive biases including ideologically motivated reasoning, framing and the Dunning-Kruger effect. These are important considerations given the extent of misinterpretable and arguably misleading numerical information published in the run-up to the vote and the high proportion of adults in the UK with low numeracy skills. The present research captured responses to both self-report questionnaires and controlled experiments delivered via 6 web-based studies with a total of 11,205 participants. Differences in personality traits, levels of authoritarianism, numeracy and thinking styles were assessed with validated self-report questionnaires, while participant’s susceptibility to cognitive biases were assessed using controlled experiments.

Personality Differences

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.