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Brexit or bremain? A person and social analysis of voting decisions in the EU referendum

Van de Vyver, J.; Leite, A.C.; Abrams, D.; Palmer, S.B.

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Authors

D. Abrams

S.B. Palmer



Abstract

The period following UK's European Union referendum in 2016 foreshadows significant social and political change in the UK. The current research draws on social psychological theories to empirically examine the drivers of voting decisions during the referendum. We report the results of a prospective study using structural equation modelling with data (N = 244) collected just before, and self‐reported voting behaviour immediately following (N = 197), the European Union referendum. We employ a person and social approach to examine the additive roles of worldview, conservatism, social identity, and intergroup threat as predictors of voting intentions and behaviour. Results showed that person factors (worldview and conservatism) predicted voting intentions through social factors (European identity and realistic threat) and that intentions predicted behaviour. The results highlight the importance of addressing threat‐based intergroup rhetoric and the potential of common in‐group identity to mitigate psychological threat.

Citation

Van de Vyver, J., Leite, A., Abrams, D., & Palmer, S. (2018). Brexit or bremain? A person and social analysis of voting decisions in the EU referendum. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 28(2), 65-79. https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.2341

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Dec 20, 2017
Online Publication Date Jan 24, 2018
Publication Date Mar 1, 2018
Deposit Date Sep 6, 2018
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology
Print ISSN 1052-9284
Electronic ISSN 1099-1298
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 28
Issue 2
Pages 65-79
DOI https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.2341
Related Public URLs http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/30158/

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Copyright Statement
This is the accepted version of the following article: Van de Vyver, J., Leite, A.C., Abrams, D. & Palmer, S.B. (2018). Brexit or bremain? A person and social analysis of voting decisions in the EU referendum. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology 28(2): 65-79 which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/casp.2341. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.





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