Nice Guys Finish Last: Personality and Political Success.

Abstract

Is there a link between personality and the electoral and in-office success of politicians? Using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory, we examine whether the Five-Factor Model personality traits are correlated with political success among Belgian elected officials. We look at three different measures of political success, corresponding to different stages of the political career—electoral success, years in office, and access to an elite political position—and find lower levels of agreeableness are systematically correlated with greater success. These results are in line with those found among American and European CEO’s (Boudreau et al. in J Vocat Behav 58(1):53–81, 2001). This study offers a unique insight in the type of personality voters and party leadership look for and reward among politicians.

Full text

Acta Polit
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41269-018-0095-z
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Nice guys finish last: personality andpolitical success
JeroenJoly1· StuartSoroka2· PeterLoewen3
© Macmillan Publishers Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2018
Abstract Is there a link between personality and the electoral and in-office suc-
cess of politicians? Using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory, we examine whether
the Five-Factor Model personality traits are correlated with political success among
Belgian elected officials. We look at three different measures of political success,
corresponding to different stages of the political career—electoral success, years
in office, and access to an elite political position—and find lower levels of agreea-
bleness are systematically correlated with greater success. These results are in line
with those found among American and European CEO’s (Boudreau etal. in J Vocat
Behav 58(1):53–81, 2001). This study offers a unique insight in the type of person-
ality voters and party leadership look for and reward among politicians.
Keywords Elites· Political careers· Personality· Elections
Introduction
Politicians are central to politics. They are key players in public deliberation of pol-
icy issues, and in policymaking itself. It is not surprising, then, that there has been
a long-standing interest in the characteristics of politicians. Much work has focused
on the demographic characteristics of politicians, with an interest in “descriptive”
* Jeroen Joly
jeroen.joly@ugent.be
1 Department ofPolitical Science, Ghent University, Universiteitstraat 8, 9000Ghent, Belgium
2 Department ofCommunication Studies andtheInstitute forSocial Research, University
ofMichigan, 105 South State Street, AnnArbor, MI, USA
3 Munk School ofGlobal Affairs andPublic Policy, University ofToronto, 14 Queen’s Park
Cres. West, Toronto, ONM5S3K9, Canada

J.Joly et al.
representation (see, e.g., Mansbridge 1999; Pitkin 1967). Another body of literature
has been concerned with the psychological and decision-making characteristics of
politicians (see, e.g., DiRenzo 1967; Levy 2013; Sheffer etal. 2018). We seek to add
to the latter literature below, through an exploration of the “personality” of elected
politicians in Belgium.
Feist and Feist (2009, p. 10) define personality as “a pattern of relatively perma-
nent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality
to a person’s behavior.” Traits help explain individual differences between people,
consistency in behavior over time, and across different situations (Feist and Feist
2009, p. 10). Despite important differences among modern theories and perspectives
on personality, most would agree that personality has a biological and genetic base,
that individual tendencies are further shaped by a myriad of experiences and envi-
ronmental factors, and that the resulting behavioral, cognitive, and emotional pat-
terns constitute personality (Cloninger 2009, p. 5). Thus, in as far as each individual
is unique, personality provides us with a conceptual framework by which we can
describe differences, as well as commonalities among individuals. The Five-Factor
Model (FFM), on which this study relies, is claimed by McCrae and Costa (2005,
p. vii) as the most important advance in the field of modern personality psychology.
The role of personality in career success and development is a question of central
attention from scholars of management and organizational psychology. The same
is not true of scholars’ focus on political success, however. The personality traits
correlated with successful political careers have received relatively little scholarly
attention. This is surely due in part to the inaccessibility of politicians. Traditional
personality tests often involve relatively lengthy questionnaires, asking personal,
sometimes even intimate, questions. Politicians are difficult to reach in the first place
and probably reluctant to answer personal questions in the second.
We argue that this is nevertheless an important line of inquiry. Indeed, political
scientists have in recent years exhibited a renewed interest in the role of personality
in guiding the behavior of citizens. We argue that this interest should extend to the
elites who represent them. In particular, we are focused on understanding how vari-
ation in personality traits is related to the success of elected officials. The results we
present are correlational rather than causal, but they do give us a sense for the per-
sonality traits of elected officials, and that in turn allows us to consider how person-
ality traits might matter for the nature and quality of representation and governance.
Personality traits may be correlated with differences in information processing and
decision-making, for instance. At the same time, personality traits may reflect the
characteristics that voters are most likely to reward. Given that past work suggests
that others’ judgments of personality traits covary with self-assessments (Gosling
etal. 2003), exploring the personality characteristics of successful politicians may
also help us understand both the characteristics rewarded by political parties on the
one hand, and voters on the other.
Using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI), administered to a large num-
ber of politicians elected to four Belgian parliaments, this study estimates the links
between the “Big Five” personality traits and several indicators of political suc-
cess, corresponding to different stages of a politician’s career, including but also
beyond election to office. We first explore correlations between personality traits and

Nice guys finish last: personality andpolitical success
candidates’ electoral success, in terms of vote share, compared to others on their
party’s electoral list. We then examine links between personality traits and politi-
cians’ longevity in parliament, through their number of years in office. Finally, we
examine whether there are traits differentiating regular politicians from those who
are or have been among the top political elite, like members of the executive, Presi-
dents of a parliamentary Chamber or party leaders.
Results point to the particular importance of agreeableness, which is negatively
correlated with vote share, longevity, and elite status. Some other traits appear to
matter as well, but less consistently. There clearly are advantages of being hard-
headed and competitive in politics. It is, after all, a competitive, contentious, and
largely zero-sum field. It is notable that our findings are in line with work on Ameri-
can and European executives (Boudreau etal. 2001); although whether our objec-
tives for political leadership should be the same as our objectives for business lead-
ership is another issue.
Our paper proceeds as follows. We first briefly describe the “Big Five” person-
ality traits. We then review the existing literature on personality and professional
success. We then turn to a description and analysis of our data. We conclude with a
discussion of our results.
The Five‑Factor Model andpolitical success
The interest in the relationship between personality and success is not new. A major
obstacle in this line of studies is the limited access to political leaders’ personality.
To circumvent this problem, Rubenzer et al. (2000) used external expert raters—
mainly biographers—to assess the personalities of all US presidents. They found
US presidents to be, on average, more extraverted, less open, and less agreeable than
the general population. Among Presidents, the personality trait most associated with
presidential success is Openness to experience (Rubenzer etal. 2000). Building on
this rich dataset, further research found a range of indicators of presidential suc-
cess to be associated with specific personal characteristics, like grandiose narcissism
(Watts etal. 2013) and fearless dominance (Lilienfeld etal. 2012). These studies
provide useful insights in how American leaders distinguish themselves from the
overall population and which personality aspects distinguish successful from regular
presidents. They are, however, hard to transpose to a non-American context, particu-
larly in coalition countries where different styles of representation apply and where
political success can be contingent upon different aspects.
The FFM, commonly known as the Big Five, regroups individual traits, used to
describe personal differences in emotional, interpersonal, experiential, attitudinal,
and motivational styles, into five basic dimensions of personality: openness, consci-
entiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (McCrae and John 1992).
In the 1980s, the notion started gaining ground that these five factors were the basic
dimensions of personality, based on decades of lexical analysis using natural lan-
guage adjectives and theoretically based personality questionnaires. Put simply,
development of the Big Five involved the factoring or grouping of words, mainly
adjectives, which people use to describe themselves or others. These descriptors

J.Joly et al.
include words and concepts like ‘sociable,’ ‘active,’ ‘positive,’ ‘dominant,’ and many
others. When asked to choose from a list of descriptors, not all of which are posi-
tive (including such adjectives as ‘fearful,’ ‘anxious,’ and ‘vulnerable,’ for example),
subjects’ choices were found to cluster into five core groups (Raggatt 2006).
These five dimensions have been identified relatively consistently among indi-
viduals of all ages and genders, and across different cultures and languages (McCrae
and Costa 1997). A large body of research suggests that this personality trait struc-
ture is universal, hereditary (Jang etal. 1996), and stable across individuals’ lifespan
(Ferguson 2010; Löckenhoff etal. 2008; Terracciano etal. 2010), with only minor
changes potentially occurring in early adulthood (McCrae etal. 1999; Roberts etal.
2001; Specht etal. 2011). Over the last decades, the FFM has become one of the
most widely explored, prominent frameworks used to assess individuals’ personality.
Briefly, the FFM comprises five traits. Following McCrae and John (1992), those
who are low on extraversion may be regarded as reserved and serious. They pre-
fer time alone or with a small number of other people. Those who are high on the
trait are conceptualized as active and outgoing, preferring to spend time around
people. Agreeableness is characterized as being compassionate, cooperative, and
good-natured, while those who are low on this trait may be regarded as competitive,
hard-headed, skeptical, and proud. Conscientiousness is characterized by depend-
ability and self-discipline. Conversely, those low on this trait are characterized as
easy-going and careless. Emotional stability implies being relaxed under stressful
conditions, while those who are not emotionally stable (i.e., neurotic) are conceived
as sensitive, emotional, and prone to being upset. Finally, openness is manifest in
having broad interests and being imaginative, while those who are low on openness
are thought to be traditional, down to earth, and practical.
Our interest in the relationship between the FFM and the success of political rep-
resentatives is fueled by two literature studies. First, there is a literature suggesting
that, as a stable set of personal dispositions, personality has been found to shape our
(political) attitudes and values, beliefs and behavior. Higher levels of openness and
agreeableness are generally associated with left-leaning ideology, and higher lev-
els of conscientiousness and extraversion are commonly found among center-right
individuals, not only for voters (Barbaranelli etal. 2007; Caprara etal. 1999, 2006;
Carney etal. 2008; Vecchione etal. 2011), but among politicians as well (Caprara
etal. 2003, 2010; Dietrich etal. 2012;Joly etal. 2018).
Extraverted individuals have also been found to display higher levels of politi-
cal self-efficacy (Cooper etal. 2013) which, in turn, affects political participation
(Vecchione and Caprara 2009). Furthermore, personality traits have also been found
to influence people’s political knowledge (Rasmussen 2015), their ability to vote
correctly (Ha and Lau 2015)—i.e., to match one’s vote with one’s preferences and
convictions—, and even the political information that they consume (Gerber etal.
2011). In sum, there is ample evidence that personality influences a wide range of
political attitudes and behavior.
Second, there is a related literature on the FFM and career success. Judge and
Kammeyer-Mueller (2007) offer a review of the field, and an especially useful model
of the relationship between personality and career success. The general thrust is that
personality affects all stages of one’s career, from job selection, to job performance,

Nice guys finish last: personality andpolitical success
to workplace social interactions. The end result is that salary and promotions are
correlated with personality traits. The same factors should apply to successful polit-
ical careers. It takes certain personal predispositions to engage in politics, or to be
approached by political parties, or affiliated organizations, like labor unions. Similarly,
politicians differ in the way they behave socially and establish relationships and net-
works with influential leadership, both within and outside their own party, as well as
with members, volunteers, staffers, and other potential voters. Finally, these disposi-
tions lead certain politicians to be more efficient in passing or amending legislation or
in brokering deals and compromise between different factions or with other politicians.
It is worth noting that we focus here on one subset of extrinsic factors related
to career success. The literature on career success has distinguished between meas-
ures of extrinsic success, i.e., salary and promotion, and measures of intrinsic suc-
cess, i.e., how an individual rates their own success. These two dimensions are only
slightly correlated (Judge etal. 1999) and are determined by different features (for
an overview see Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller 2007). We regard extrinsic success
as more critical here—we care about how personality traits are related to who gets
and stays in office, after all. We note only that measures of intrinsic success capture
a rather different phenomenon, and perhaps one worthy of study elsewhere.
Expectations
Given the lack of previous work on the link between Big Five personality traits and
political success, we rely here on work on career success, particularly (but not exclu-
sively) in work focused on elite corporate executives (esp. Boudreau etal. 2001). The
literature suggests that one relatively consistent predictor of success is extraversion.
Extraversion is typically associated with positive moods, more energy and enthusi-
asm, and more rewarding interpersonal experiences (Judge and Kammeyer-Mueller
2007), and a wide range of studies find higher levels of extraversion to predict higher
salary and promotion (Ng etal. 2005; Rode etal. 2008; Seibert and Kraimer 2001;
Sutin etal. 2009). In their study among 1885 American and 1871 European execu-
tives—particularly relevant to our own study given their high functioning elite sub-
jects—Boudreau etal. (2001) find extraversion to be positively related to both salary
and promotion, albeit only among European (but not American) executives.
Similarly, lower levels of neuroticism (or higher levels of emotional stability)
have been found to positively predict career success (Gelissen and de Graaf 2006;
Judge etal. 1999; Ng etal. 2005; Sutin etal. 2009). Characteristics like emotional
instability and anxiety are likely to affect job performance, as well as interpersonal
interactions, hindering one’s career evolution. Among executives, Boudreau et al.
(2001) find emotional stability to influence success among American participants
for both salary and promotion.
Some studies suggest no significant relationship between agreeableness and
extrinsic career success (Gelissen and de Graaf 2006; Judge etal. 1999; Sutin etal.
2009); some suggest correlations for certain occupations only (Seibert and Kraimer
2001); and some find agreeableness to be negatively related to salary and promo-
tion (Boudreau et al. 2001; Bozionelos 2004; Ng et al. 2005; Rode et al. 2008).

J.Joly et al.
Intuitively, agreeableness might seem like a quality that would improve interper-
sonal interactions and how someone is perceived on the work floor. Ng etal. (2005),
however, argue that more agreeable individuals might be perceived as more “doc-
ile and easily manipulated” and, therefore, receive less sponsorship. Boudreau etal.
(2001) find that more agreeable individuals have lower salaries and are less close to
their CEO.
The picture is similarly variable for conscientiousness, which has been positively
associated with professional success in some studies (Judge etal. 1999; Ng et al.
2005; Sutin etal. 2009), and uncorrelated with success in others (Bozionelos 2004;
Rode etal. 2008; Seibert and Kraimer 2001). Among European and American exec-
utives, Boudreau etal. (2001) do not find any relationship between conscientious-
ness and either salary or promotion. They do, however, show that conscientious par-
ticipants in both the European and American samples were more focused on their
work.
There does not seem to be a clear relationship between openness and professional
success. Most studies find no effect (Boudreau etal. 2001; Judge etal. 1999; Rode
etal. 2008; Sutin etal. 2009); others find positive (Bozionelos 2004; Ng etal. 2005)
or negative (Seibert and Kraimer 2001) effects on salary.
Clearly, the effect of personality traits on job success is variable, contingent on
the type of professional activity (Seibert and Kraimer 2001), as well as stage of
career, local culture, and customs (Boudreau etal. 2001), and a range of other indi-
vidual and organizational features. The literature clearly points to the relevance of
extraversion, and perhaps also neuroticism; on other personality traits, it provides
less guidance. Our work is thus exploratory, and as we shall see, the results we offer
do not always fall cleanly in line with the existing literature on corporate success.
Method
This study relies on Belgian interview/survey data gathered during a broader survey
study on political representation and information processing in 2015. At the end of
an extensive 45-min personal interview, once trust and rapport with the interview
subject had been well established, politicians were presented with a short personal-
ity test. A total of 413 national and regional politicians, including party leaders and
members of the executive, were contacted to participate in our study. We were able
to interview a total of 272 (66%) politicians—94 from theFlemish parliament, 31
from the Walloon parliament, 95 from the federal level, and 12 from the Brussels
Regional parliament.
Respondents participated in our survey on a computer that our researchers pro-
vided. They were given the necessary space to answer our questions while safe-
guarding their privacy. In all our communications with potential respondents or their
staff (email, phone conversations personal contacts), we always emphasized the ano-
nymity of our study. During the meetings, interviewers remained at their disposal
for any additional substantial or technical questions. While none of our respondents
refused to participate or showed any reluctance answering this part of the survey, 40
respondents failed or refused to answer all ten of the necessary items. This leaves

Nice guys finish last: personality andpolitical success
us with a sample of 232 fully answered TIPI assessments by politicians at different
stages of their political career.
To measure respondents’ personality traits, we used the TIPI, as shown in
theAppendix. Given the length of traditional personality measures, we required a
short, yet reliable, way to ascertain the five personality traits among politicians with-
out risking major dropout and without the sometimes invasive questions typical to
some personality instruments. Through ten statements, the TIPI assesses respond-
ents’ personality on each of the “Big Five” personality traits (2 questions per trait).
Respondents indicate on a 7-point Likert scale to which degree each statement
applies to them. While this brief measure might be somewhat inferior to personality
tests like the NEO-PI, it has been employed and validated across numerous coun-
tries and different settings (Ehrhart etal. 2009; Gosling etal. 2003). We presented
politicians with the translated adapted Belgian version (Hofmans etal. 2008). The
observed distribution for each trait is displayed in Fig.1.
Measures of political success are not drawn from the survey, but rather from read-
ily available observational data. Our first measure of success captures politicians’
electoral performance: starting with the absolute number of votes each MP received
at the simultaneous federal and regional elections in 2014,1 we generate a measure
of electoral success that can be compared across electoral districts by calculating the
percent vote share of each MP vis-à-vis the total votes their party gained per district.
Given how individual politicians benefit from the overall result of their party, this
measure looks at the individual performance of each politician, controlling for the
party’s electoral success.2 This provides for a better comparison within the same
party and between candidates from different parties. Figure 2 shows the distribu-
tion of politicians’ individual preference votes, expressed as a percentage of their
party’s total votes in their electoral district. The average for politicians in our sample
is 12%.
A second measure of political success captures how good politicians are at keep-
ing their jobs. While some politicians achieve an extraordinary electoral result for a
very brief period of time, others are able to maintain their position in Parliament for
several decades. We therefore use the number of consecutive years in office since an
MP was first elected to ascertain their longevity as a politician. Figure3 shows the
number of years politicians from our sample have been in office. One-third of our
sample was newly elected in the year preceding our interviews; even so, some have
been around much longer, and on average our politicians have been in Parliament for
7.4years.
1 Election results for each Parliament and constituency can be found here:
http://www.vlaan deren kiest .be/verki ezing en201 4/#/parle ment/R0200 0/uitsl agen,
http://bru20 14.irisn et.be/web5S ite/nl/index .html,
http://bru20 14.irisn et.be/web5S ite/nl/cha/resul ts/resul ts_start .html,
http://elect ions.fgov.be/index .php?id=3265&L=1,
http://elect ions.fgov.be/index .php?id=3266&L=1,
http://elect ions.fgov.be/index .php?id=3273&L=1.
2 Preference vote = individual number of preference votes/total votes of the party in that district*100.

J.Joly et al.
A third measure of political success focuses on representatives’ ability to achieve
elite status. Elected politicians can hold different positions, in parliament or as mem-
bers of the executive. Here, we distinguish between regular MPs and those who
are—or have previously been—party leader, speaker, parliamentary group leader,
minister, or state secretary (junior member of the cabinet). These positions are
0 10 20 30
Percentage
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Openness
0 5 10 15 20
Percentage
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Conscientiousness
0 10 20 30
Percentage
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Extraversion
0 10 20 30 40
Percentage
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Agreeableness
0 10 20 30
Percentage
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Emotional Stability
Fig. 1 Distribution of Big Five scores for Belgian politicians

Nice guys finish last: personality andpolitical success
associated with more formal power and competences or access to the highest ranks
of power, with greater media exposure, and often with higher remuneration—either
directly or through expenses. This gives us a total of 53 individuals (23%) catego-
rized as elites among the total group of 232 politicians. 148 of those politicians were
male, with 84 females.3
0 5 10 15 20 25
Percent
0 20 40 60
Fig. 2 Distribution of individual preference votes as part of the total party votes in politician’s electoral
district
0 10 20 30 40
Percentage
0 5 10 15 20 25+
Fig. 3 Distribution of politician’syears in office
3 It is worth noting that both our sample generally, and our sample of elites versus non-elites, are not
biased in terms of political ideology. For instance, using the most recent Chapel Hill Expert Survey
(CHES) data (Bakker etal. 2015; Polk etal. 2017), we observe that the average ideological left–right
position for elites is 5.4 and 5.6 for non-elites—0 corresponds to the most left and 10 to the most right
wing party. The CHES data include local expert assessments on the ideological left (0)–right (10) posi-
tion for each political party in a given country.

J.Joly et al.
Results
We explore the relationship between personality traits and each of our three meas-
ures of political success in turn, below.
Preference votes
Table1 displays ordinary least squares (OLS) regression results explaining the per-
centage of votes each politician obtained on their party’s list in their constituency.
The model includes our measure of the Big Five alongside several controls, namely,
list position and age. List position is the place on a party list on which each MP
appears. Lists are determined at the party level, and since parties generally allocate
their parliamentary seats according to list position, the higher one’s position, the
higher the probability of being elected into office. List position reflects the popular-
ity and prominence of MPs, of course; it is thus an important control variable when
considering preference votes. In our sample, the average list position is 3 (SD = 3.8);
and the coefficient makes clear that as one’s position on the list increases (i.e., as
they get lower on the list), the number of preference votes decreases.
Age also matters for political success. This is most likely due to the correlation
between age and experience (age correlates strongly with numbers of years in office,
r = .42, p < .01). And here, we see that age is powerfully correlated with preference
votes.
Even with these factors taken into account, results in Table1 suggest that politi-
cians who are less agreeable and more emotionally stable receive more preference
votes. Coefficients are weakly significant and small. Even so, it is important to note
that small effects may have a relatively large impact on the absolute and proportional
number of votes politicians receive. A 1-point decrease on agreeableness makes
an average difference of 1.5 percentage points of the candidate’s total votes within
their district. Scores on agreeableness range from 2.5 to the maximum of 7, with a
mean of 5. The interquartile range on this measure is roughly 4–6 on this measure,
Table 1 OLS regression model
of politicians’ percentage of
preferential votes per party list
and district
Coef. SE p
Extraversion .121 .602 .840
Agreeableness −1.503 .830 .072
Conscientiousness −.068 .705 .923
Emotional stability 1.314 .703 .063
Openness .322 .712 .651
List position −.946 .179 .000
Age .249 .073 .001
Constant 2.505 7.565 .741
Observations 229
R2.175

Nice guys finish last: personality andpolitical success
and that 2-point shift in agreeableness corresponds to a 3-percentage point shift in
preference votes—a notable shift considering the distribution shown in Fig.2. Con-
versely, a 1-point increase in emotional stability favors the candidate’s votes by 1.3
percentage points. Scores on Emotional stability are more broadly distributed and
range between 1 and 7, with an average of 5.2. Again, moving across the interquar-
tile range is associated with a roughly 3-percentage point shift in preference votes.
Longevity
Table2 examines whether certain personality traits are associated with longer politi-
cal careers. There can be different reasons for politicians to leave public office, from
failure to get re-elected to a loss of interest or the pursuit of a different professional
challenge. Accounting for politicians’ age, the OLS regression in Table2 shows that
agreeableness also plays a role in the longevity of politicians’ parliamentary career.
In line with the results in Table2, lower levels of agreeableness are associated with
longer parliamentary careers. A 1-point decrease on agreeableness makes an aver-
age difference of 1year in parliamentary experience. Moving across the interquartile
range in this variable is thus associated with a 2-year change in longevity.
Elite status
Finally, we look at the differences in personality between elite politicians, contrast-
ing (former) members of the executive, and regular MPs. Bivariate t tests indicate
that elites display lower scores on agreeableness and higher scores on openness to
experience. On average, our 179 regular politicians have an agreeableness score of
5, whereas the 53 elite politicians have a score of 4.75 (p < .05). Conversely, elites
have an average openness score of 5.5 compared to an average score of 5.1 for reg-
ular MPs (p < .05). Given the binary outcome, Table 3 shows results from a logit
regression model; this confirms that, even controlling for age, politicians with lower
scores on agreeableness are more likely to have made it to an executive position
or some position of political leadership (currently or previously). Openness has not
Table 2 OLS regression model
of politicians’ longevity in
Parliament (years in office)
Coef. SE p
Extraversion −.397 .361 .272
Agreeableness −1.068 .493 .031
Conscientiousness .014 .423 .974
Emotional stability .164 .415 .693
Openness .647 .428 .132
Age .292 .043 .000
Constant −3.159 4.534 .487
Observations 232
R2.205

J.Joly et al.
been significant in previous models, but it does seem to matter here: ceteris paribus,
higher levels of openness are associated with a greater likelihood of elite status.
Finally, Table 4 displays the results including a number of demographics, like
age, gender, and education. As mentioned above, age is the only demographic varia-
ble that systematically affects our three measures of success. Gender and education,
however, do affect elite status; while higher level of education increases the likeli-
hood of an elite position, now or in the past, women have a lower chance of attaining
an elite position. This is not the case in our two other measures of success, due, in
part to the high gender quotas4 imposed on party lists.5
Discussion
Looking at the personalities of Belgian politicians, we find correlations between
personality traits and measures of political success. There is some variation across
measures of success—openness seems to matter for elite status, and emotional sta-
bility shows a correlation with preference votes, for instance. But there is one con-
sistent finding across all measures of success: agreeableness matters. This is not
to say that more agreeable politicians fare well; indeed, the opposite is true. Less
agreeable politicians receive more preference votes, have longer political careers,
and are more likely to achieve elite status.
This result is very similar to findings for extrinsic success in general, and par-
ticularly among CEO’s in the US and Europe (Boudreau et al. 2001). We can
only speculate on the causal mechanisms driving this effect, of course. It may
be that (Belgian) voters reward candidates who have remained true to their con-
victions and have not conceded too much, to their own party or to other parties
Table 3 Logit regression model
of politicians’ (former) elite
political status
Coef. SE p
Extraversion .155 .154 .313
Agreeableness −.348 .195 .074
Conscientiousness −.131 .173 .450
Emotional stability .022 .169 .895
Openness .398 .175 .023
Age .068 .019 .000
Constant −5.041 1.924 .009
Observations 232 232
Pseudo R2.100 .100
4 Since 2002, electoral lists at the federal and regional levels are required to present an equal number of
men and women.
5 We also tested for interaction effects between personality and the covariates. We tested this by running
models in which each personality trait was interacted (separately) with either sex or age (in the models
that control for demographics). In no instance was the interaction statistically significant.

Nice guys finish last: personality andpolitical success
and stakeholders. Perhaps politicians with lower levels of agreeableness are less
likely to sacrifice or compromise their own careers for the greater benefit of the
party, and this has electoral advantages. In line with Ng etal. (2005), we suspect
that politicians with higher levels of agreeableness may be rated by their peers
and superiors as being docile and more easily manipulated. This may not be what
party leadership tends to look for when they select candidates for the executive
or for other high profile political positions. In executive positions, Ministers and
State Secretaries also act as party delegates who need to guarantee policies stay
within the confines of the government agreement. Additionally, agreeable indi-
viduals might more easily put others or their party before their own interests, and
might not seem suited to withstand criticism from opposition parties or express
similar criticism to others. Of course, supporting any of these claims requires
an analysis of personality traits alongside MP’s parliamentary and/or electoral
behavior, and we have no such analysis here.
This study nevertheless offers a first glimpse at the personality traits associated
with success at different stages of the political career. It may also tell us some-
thing about what voters appreciate or expect from their politicians, and/or the
Table 4 Regression models
of three measures of success,
including gender and education
p values in parentheses
(1) (2) (3)
Preference votes Years in office Elite status
Extra −0.060 −0.518 0.240
(0.927) (0.182) (0.163)
Agree −1.658 −1.090 −0.248
(0.066) (0.038) (0.238)
Cons 0.091 −0.179 −0.091
(0.903) (0.686) (0.615)
Emo 1.288 0.270 0.006
(0.083) (0.529) (0.973)
Open 0.557 0.496 0.430
(0.460) (0.266) (0.022)
List position −0.895 – –
(0.000)
Age 0.228 0.300 0.060
(0.004) (0.000) (0.003)
Gender −0.098 −0.062 −0.772
(0.951) (0.947) (0.067)
Education 1.012 0.683 1.112
(0.530) (0.465) (0.018)
Constant 0.522 −3.249 −8.805
(0.956) (0.557) (0.001)
Observations 208 211 211
R20.176 0.233

J.Joly et al.
personality traits that party leadership rewards when distributing the most impor-
tant political positions.
Whether these findings are good or bad for politics is another matter; as is the
possibility that different political institutions might encourage/reward rather differ-
ent personality traits. Is there something peculiar about the Belgian system that is
particularly rewarding of not-agreeable candidates? There are reasons to suspect that
a proportional, coalition-forming system like the Belgian one might reward rather
than penalize agreeableness; perhaps the advantages of not-agreeableness are even
stronger in a more oppositional, first-past-the-post system in the UK or US. Does
not-agreeableness produce better political representation? On the one hand, inso-
far as not-agreeable politicians are less likely to negotiate or change their minds
on issues, they may actually be more accurate in representing the issue positions
that get them elected. On the other hand, an unwillingness to cooperate may lead to
political deadlock. These are just some of the questions worth considering in future
work, perhaps on the personality traits of politicians across countries. Understanding
the personality traits that produce political success, in one country at least, has been
the objective above. We hope that future work is able to consider how these traits
shift across party structures and political institutions, and consider how this matters
for the nature of politics and the quality of political representation.
Appendix: Ten‑Item Personality Inventory (TIPI)
The next battery of questions is designed to assess certain aspects of your personal-
ity. These questions have been used extensively in a wide variety of international
studies. We would like to ask you to score a number of these traits for which there
is, of course no right or wrong answer. They may seem contradictory, but this is how
the battery has been used successfully in prior research. This is important for us, as
we would like to know if, for example, extravert representatives have different infor-
mation processing styles or other views on how to represent citizens. It is important
to note that your answers are anonymous and will never be used in a way that can
identify you. We list a number of personality traits that may or may not apply to you.
Can you indicate to which extent you agree or disagree with each statement. You
should rate the extent to which a pair of traits applies to you, even if one characteris-
tic applies more strongly than the other. I see myself as:
Disagree
strongly
Disagree
moderately
Disagree a
little
Neither
agree nor
disagree
Agree a
little
Agree mod-
erately
Agree
strongly
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Extraverted, enthusiastic
2. Critical, quarrelsome
3. Dependable, self-disciplined
4. Anxious, easily upset
5. Open to new experiences, complex

Nice guys finish last: personality andpolitical success
6. Reserved, quiet
7. Sympathetic, warm
8. Disorganized, careless
9. Calm, emotionally stable
10. Conventional, uncreative
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