Brexit and the relevance of regional personality traits: more psychological Openness could have swung the regional vote
基于人格特质和社会经济数据，研究发现心理开放性这一人格特质对英国各地区脱欧投票结果有显著影响，甚至小幅改变即可扭转结果，并解释了依赖欧盟贸易的地区为何多数支持脱欧。
This article adds a psychological perspective to help explain the regional Brexit vote. Based on an extensive dataset with personality traits, combined with socio-economic data, our findings suggest that the regional clustering of these personality traits contribute to an understanding of the regional dispersion of the Brexit vote. We find evidence that psychological 'Openness' is the personality trait that matters most and that modest changes in this trait could actually have swung the vote across UK districts. Moreover, the relevance of psychological Openness solves the puzzle that UK districts that are relatively dependent on trade with the EU predominantly voted for Leave. By including psychological factors, our results show how we can arrive at a better understanding of the geography of the discontent with globalisation.