The association between agreeableness, extraversion, and support for secessionist movements: Evidence from a large survey of more than 33,000 respondents in Catalonia ☆ Joan Barceló Washington University in St. Louis, Department of Political Science, Campus Box 1063, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899, United States. abstract article info Article history: Received 5 August 2016 Received in revised form 3 November 2016 Accepted 11 November 2016 Available online xxxx Does personality influence attitudes toward secessionism? Personality traits are important determinants of a wide range of political attitudes and behaviors. Prior work has mainly focused on the study of personality during regular processes of democratic political systems (e.g., vote choice, turnout, information acquisition, etc.). By con- trast, this paper assesses that personality traits have an influence over the decision of individuals to support a se- cessionist movement. To test this, I rely on a survey distributed to more than 33.000 respondents in Catalonia, a region with a salient secessionist movement. Beyond the effects of demographic characteristics, political factors, descent-based attributes, economic considerations, and even identity attachments, the results confirm that the personality trait of Agreeableness is associated with supporting the Catalan secessionist movement. Although less consistently, there is some preliminary evidence that extraverted individuals are more likely to support the movement. I conclude that combining insights from political science, sociology and psychology in the study of dispositional and situational determinants of attitudes toward secessionism is fertile research ground. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Big Five Personality Agreeableness Extraversion Referendum Independence Secessionism Political behavior 1. Introduction A secession is defined as a formal separation from a larger organized body to which the secessionist region has been tied to. In a world dom- inated by states, it is not surprising that the study of secessionism is of vital importance. The number of countries in the world has tripled dur- ing the second half of the twentieth century due to a process of decolo- nization and separation from larger entities. Today, some recent successful secessionist cases such as East Timor, Montenegro, South Sudan or Kosovo, have been paralleled by increases in the demands for secession in advanced democracies. Even though political elites tend to play a substantial role in these processes, mass support for inde- pendence usually becomes a crucial driver for the successful culmina- tion of a secessionist project. A wide range of factors have been found to influence an individual's attitudes, preferences and behaviors concerning secessionism. Demo- graphic, political variables, descent-based, as well as identity variables are common predictors in most empirical models of secessionism in ad- vanced democracies (Barceló, 2014, Burg, 2015, Orriols & Rodón, 2016, Serrano, 2013). Moreover, some scholars suggest that economic consid- erations such as future expectation in the current compared to the new regime may also underlie the surge in secessionist movements (Burg, 2015, Muñoz & Tormos, 2015). Alternatively, other scholars also suggest that elite-led cuing is the major driving force behind people's support for a secession (Fernández-Albertos & Lago, 2015, Miley, 2014, Torcal & Mota, 2014). In addition, there is a growing body of scholarship which debates the impact of psychological factors such as moral sentiments (Lewis & Brown, 2015) or risk attitudes (Nadeau, Martin, & Blai, 1999; Verge, Guinjoan, & Rodón, 2015) on secessionist aspirations. Nevertheless, scholars have not considered the potential impact of individuals' per- sonality in their support for secessionist movements. To fill this gap, I provide a systematic analysis of the role of personality traits in supporting secessionist movements. 1.1. Personality as a disposition for attitudes and behavior Personality is the psychological organization responsible for the way individuals react to external stimuli. Everyone has a unique personality, which influences how we think and behave (Allport & Odbert, 1936). Personality psychologists have accumulated much evidence suggesting that individuals are characterized by dispositional personality traits that can be categorized under the umbrella of the Big Five Factor Model, or simply, the Big Five: Extraversion, Openness to experience, Agreeable- ness, Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism (John, Naumann, & Soto, 2008; McCrae & Costa, 1999). Personality and Individual Differences 107 (2017) 102–107 ☆ I thank James L. Gibson, Chris Dawes, Dawn Brancati, Nicole Simonelli, Vera Heuer, and Luke Cooper for helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. All remaining errors are my own. Replication data and code are available on the author's website. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.11.029 0191-8869/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid