ABSTRACT
One kind of theory of the psychology of political belief has it that political beliefs emerge from personality types. This chapter outlines two important theories of this sort: the moral foundations theory of Jonathan Haidt and the authoritarian personality theory of Theodor Adorno. It then considers some general obstacles for such research. Chief among these is “content overlap,” in which, potentially due to the political beliefs of the researchers themselves, personality scales measure political belief directly rather than measuring personality traits which are then correlated with political belief.
