Supermarket politics: personality and political consumerism.

ABSTRACT: Research suggests that citizens are increasingly turning to the market to express their political beliefs and values. Termed 'political consumerism', such behaviour can take a variety of forms-including boycotts and buycotts. While recent research has uncovered many of the sociodemographic and attitudinal correlates of political consumer behaviour, other individual differences, such as those rooted in personality, have been less studied. Drawing on a sample of more than 2500 voting-aged Canadians, we consider the relationship between individual differences in personality traits and political consumerism (boycotting and buycotting). Results reveal that, even after controlling for other known correlates such as age, gender, education, income, ideology, and political interest, differences in personality matter. We show that this is the case for both general and antagonistic traits.

SUBMITTER: Pruysers S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12685151 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature