Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable

experts and genuinely engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC

makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

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Hello, thanks for downloading this podcast from the BBC. I'm James Tilly,

and in this episode of analysis, I'll be looking at how our personalities affect our politics.

Where do our political beliefs really come from?

Politicians would like to think they're a result of their campaigning.

Our parents might say, it's all about the values they patiently imparted to us. That every boy and every gal that's born into the home alive is either a little liberal. But are we actually just predisposed by our personality to like certain ideologies?

But are we actually just predisposed by our personality to like certain ideologies.

Are Gilbert and Sullivan right? Are we all born a little liberal or conservatite?

And if we are just innately different to one another in what we want, might taking this to heart

make it easier to compromise with people on the other side of the political divide?

I'm James Tilly, a professor of politics at Oxford, and in this episode of analysis, I want to find out how our personalities shape our political beliefs.

First off, what is personality? Jeff Mondack is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois.

We think of personality as being an individual's multifaceted, enduring psychological structure or orientation and it influences our behavior.

So when you speak of differences, we know that people can be more or less likely to try new types of

food or to prefer to avoid parties to be punctual versus perpetually tardy.

That kind of variation in our general patterns of behavior

...