Consistent with the well-documented relation between political orientation and psychological traits, hedge funds' political orientations are related to their portfolio decisions. Relative to politically conservative hedge funds, politically liberal hedge funds exhibit a preference for smaller stocks, less mature companies, volatile stocks, unprofitable companies, non-dividend paying companies, and lottery-type securities. Politically liberal hedge funds are also more likely to enter new positions or fully exit existing positions, and make larger adjustments to their U.S. equity market exposure. Our results suggest that psychological characteristics can influence the portfolio decisions of even those at the very top of the financial sophistication ladder.

This thesis evaluates the ways media frames influence attitude towards brands when the brand endorses a controversial celebrity spokesperson. This research was created with the intent to fill a current gap in communication research, providing original data and addressing the influence that external factors, specifically media frames and political orientations, hold over an audience's perception of spokespeople and the brands they later endorse. This was accomplished through an original, cross-sectional experiment that measured how celebrity athletes, who speak out about partisan issues, function as agents for messaging in brand advertisements. This thesis draws upon the communication theories of agenda setting, and primarily framing, in order to evaluate how impactful media frames of an athlete can become to consumers once the media highlights the spokesperson through a polarizing frame. This experiment attempts to replicate 'the Kaepernick effect,' inspired by the polarizing media coverage of Colin Kaepernick over his 2016-NFL season with the 49-ers, leading up to his partnership with Nike for its 2018 "Dream Crazy" advertisement. The findings from this study reveal that media frames, though carrying some impact, are not the most influential factor in shaping audiences' attitudes towards spokespeople or the brands they advertised. This study contributes new data to the discipline of media effects research, extending the conversation about celebrity athlete endorsers, the influence of media frames on consumer response, and implications for future studies. / Master of Arts / This thesis looks at the effects that media frames, within news stories, have on audiences' attitudes and behaviors. Specifically, this thesis examines audiences' developed attitudes towards controversial celebrity spokespeople, who speak out about partisan issues, and later endorse or align themselves with a brand. This thesis utilizes an original experiment that measures how controversial celebrity figures, athletes specifically, function as agents for messaging in brand advertisements. This thesis draws upon the communication theories of agenda setting, and primarily framing, in order to evaluate how impactful media frames of an athlete can become to consumers once the media highlights the spokesperson through a polarizing frame. This experiment attempts to replicate 'the Kaepernick effect,' inspired by the polarizing media coverage of Colin Kaepernick over his 2016-NFL season with the 49-ers, leading up to his partnership with Nike for its 2018 "Dream Crazy" advertisement. The findings from this study reveal that media frames, though carrying some impact, are not the most influential factor in shaping audiences' attitudes towards spokespeople or the brands they advertised. This study contributes new data to the discipline of media effects research, extending the conversation about celebrity athlete endorsers, the influence of media frames on consumer response, and implications for future studies.

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Climate change is a major threat and human activity has beenone of the main contributing factors to climate change. Whilesome previous research has focused on certain personality traitsand environmental behavior, there hasn’t been much researchfocusing on the relationship between empathy as a trait andpro-environmental behavior. The present study aimed toinvestigate this relationship between empathy as a trait andpro-environmental behavior in Sweden with political orientationas a control variable. Participants (N=110) were asked to answer14 statements measuring empathy as a trait and another 14statements measuring pro-environmental behavior of a 5 pointLikert scale. The results showed a significantly positivecorrelation between these two variables. Also, an individual’spolitical orientation was an important underlying factor to therelationship. The findings from the study contributed additionalinformation to this relationship in Sweden. With these results,we hope to raise awareness for further research in the area sothat pro-environmental behavior can be effectively promoted

Varje individ har en unik personlighet som påverkar olika livsaspekter. Politisk orientering är en av dessa. Forskning har visat att det finns ett samband mellan personligheten och politisk orientering. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka relationen mellan HEXACO sex personlighetsdimensioner och politisk orientering samt hur den politiska orienteringen förhåller sig mellan högskolans fyra akademier. Etthundratre studenter deltog i undersökningen. En webbenkät delades ut till högskolestudenterna vilken bestod av 3 demografiska frågor, 60 personlighetsfrågor och 1 fråga som mäter politisk orientering. Resultatet från korrelation och regressionsanalyserna visade att personligheten har ett signifikant samband med politisk orientering där vänsterorienterade studenter tenderar att vara mer empatiska och att högerorienterade studenter visar en strävan efter social status. Studenter i UKK och HVV visade en vänsterorienterad inställning medan IDT och EST en högerorienterad. Totalt kunde 36% av studenters politiska orientering förklaras av demografiska variabler, akademitillhörighet och personlighetdimensionerna. I diskussionen diskuteras resultatet med olika infallsvinklar.

Climate change denial has been found to correlate with sociopolitical ideology. The general aim of the present thesis was to investigate this relation, and more specifically to 1) test the unique effects of intercorrelated ideological variables on denial, and 2) investigate the psychological underpinnings of the ideology-denial relation. This approach helps estimating what component of right-wing ideology better explains climate change denial; resistance to change (indexed by left-right/liberal-conservative political orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, and system justification), or acceptance of inequality (indexed by social dominance orientation [SDO]). In Paper I, SDO outperformed the effects of right-wing authoritarianism and political left-right orientation on denial (Study 1 and 2). Further, the SDO-denial relation was stable when denial scores were experimentally lowered by a newscast that communicated supportive evidence for climate change (Study 2). Thus, the following studies focused specifically on the SDO-denial relation by testing path models that also included other ideological variables (political conservatism, system justification, and endorsement of nature dominance), as well as personality variables (dominance, empathy, openness to experience, and anxiety avoidance) and/or gender. In Paper II, SDO and endorsement of nature dominance explained unique parts of climate change denial, and both of these variables mediated the effects of system justification and (low) empathy on denial. SDO mediated also the effect of dominance. In Paper III, focusing specifically on denial of human-induced climate change, SDO either partially or fully mediated the effects of political conservatism and gender across two cultural contexts (Brazil and Sweden). Additional analyses extended these results, by building on the model presented in Paper II. These analyses showed that SDO (and in some cases also political conservatism and endorsement of nature dominance) fully mediated the effects of gender and personality variables on denial, with one exception: Predisposition to avoid experiencing anxiety predicted denial directly, as well as through a link via general conservative ideology (system justification or political conservatism). In sum, the results indicate that denial is more strongly and consistently predicted by SDO than by the other included variables. Thus, endorsement of group-based inequality/hierarchies offers an important explanation for climate change denial.

Personlighet påverkar många livsaspekter. Tidigare forskning har visat att politik är en av dessa aspekter. Forskning inom området har konstaterat ett samband mellan personlighet och riktningen av personers politiska orientering samt mellan personlighet och Känsla av sammanhang (KASAM). Däremot fanns en forskningslucka kring relationen mellan KASAM och politik. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka relationen som de fem grundläggande personlighetsdimensionerna och KASAM har till Politiskt intresse samt Politisk inriktning, men även relationen mellan personlighetsdimensionerna och KASAM. Hundrafemtiofem studenter deltog varav 37 män. Datainsamling gjordes via enkät, som bestod av BFI-44, SOC-13 samt självrapportering av Politiskt intresse och inriktning. Databearbetningen skedde via korrelationsanalys samt regressionsanalys. Studiens resultat visade att personlighet hade ett samband med politik samt KASAM och att KASAM hade ett samband med en högerorienterad politisk inriktning. Eftersom relationen mellan KASAM och politik var relativt outforskad kan resultatet av denna studie ses som ett intressant ämne för framtida forskning.

Can nudging promote sustainable consumption behaviour? This study investigates if nudging promotes more environmentally-friendly purchases when applying either a default option or adding a product to elicit the attraction effect in a consumption situation of electronic products. The study further investigates sustainable consumption behaviour by looking at political orientation and the degree of climate change denial. The results show that nudging can promote significantly more environmentally-friendly purchases. The attraction effect was found to have positive effects, but not the default option. A higher proportion of environmentally-friendly purchases was further carried out by participants having a lower denial towards climate change. Climate change denial was also correlated with political orientation; participants evaluating themselves as right-wing oriented showed higher climate change denial, and proceeded with less sustainable purchases. Despite identifying positive effects of nudging on sustainable consumption behaviour, data also indicate an interaction effect between nudging and the sequenced presentation order of condition. This can be interpreted as a carry-over effect moderating the effect of nudging when it is presented after a control condition. This moderating effect is discussed as a potential limitation of nudging as a tool to affect people’s behaviour.

This thesis aims to clarify the nature of the relationship between moral reasoning, as per the neo-Kohlbergian DIT approach of Rest and his colleagues, and liberalism-conservatism. Moral reasoning and liberalism-conservatism are consistently found to be related but the resultant interpretation that liberals are more moral-cognitively advanced than conservatives has been challenged by Emler and his colleagues who argue that the DIT is liberally biased. Subsequent research on this issue has produced a methodological quagmire that this thesis aims to proceed beyond. The specific aim of this thesis is to test several different (or competing) hypotheses purporting to explain the relationship between Kohlbergian moral reasoning and liberalism-conservatism. These are (1) that liberals are more morally advanced than conservatives; (2) that "advanced moral reasoning" is merely social presentation; (3) that moral reasoning is separately constrained by moral development and conservatism; (4) that moral development and liberalism represent distinct paths to postconventional reasoning preference; (5) that moral reasoning differences between liberals and conservatives are broader than usually thought; (6) that the political content of moral issues affects moral reasoning differences between liberals and conservatives; and (7) that moral reasoning instruments have exaggerated moral reasoning differences between liberals and conservatives. Study 1 found that a non-ipsative, indirect moral reasoning measure was correlated with liberalism-conservatism thus disconfirming hypotheses 2 and 7. Additionally, hypothesis 5 was not supported by several DIT findings. Opposing hypotheses 2 and 6, Study 2 found that a conservative version of the DIT was correlated with liberalism-conservatism although a potential methodological issue arose. Study 3 developed an objective measure of moral comprehension, broader in scope than previous moral comprehension measures, which demonstrated acceptable reliability and validity. Employing this measure, Study 4 found that moral comprehension and liberalism were weakly correlated and that they independently predicted moral reasoning, although their interaction did not. Together, these findings provide some support to hypotheses 1 and 4 but not hypotheses 3 and 6. Overall these findings reveal that liberals appear more moral-cognitively advanced than conservatives but, compared to conservatives, liberals appear to indicate preference for advanced moral reasoning earlier in their moral-cognitive development. This latter mechanism appears stronger and suggests that, although DIT scores are still somewhat reflective of moral-cognitive development, the DIT�s estimate of liberals� moral-cognitive development is elevated. Future research can continue to explore these hypotheses (e.g., via longitudinal and/or "faking" studies) and, in so doing, further clarify the relationship between Kohlbergian moral reasoning and liberalism-conservatism.

The purpose of this essay is to explore how social media affect the political orientation and commitment of youths. Three scientific questions highlight the purpose from different angles. The didactic perspective is discussed in the initial and closing discussion, and is analyzed in the corresponding chapter. Two methods are involved in the study; one survey and one interview with a focus group. The survey had a total of 98 respondents from four different classes, all in the first grade of upper secondary school. The interview was conducted with four students from one of the classes. The results show that social media still owns a lower grade of trust compared to traditional media. Moreover, it's shown that youths themselves are aware that they're affected by social media, but believe that others are affected even more. Most of the youths get a sense of participation in society at large by doing relatively simple actions on different social media sites. However, the sense of participation is heavily influenced by socioeconomic status. The youths use the social media sites as democratic venues, although it's rare for these meetings to transfer to the real world. Didactic insights can be gained from the results. The results show that youths, independent of study programme, are critical to content found in social media. Political interest corresponds by large to socioeconomic status, although political interest can vary greatly, even between classes studying the same programme. / Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka hur sociala medier påverkar ungdomars politiska uppfattning och engagemang. Detta görs med hjälp av tre huvudsakliga frågeställningar som belyser syftet i olika vinklar. Det didaktiska perspektivet uppmärksammas i inledande och avslutande diskussion samt analys. Två metoder har valts för att besvara frågeställningarna; en enkätundersökning samt en fokusgruppintervju. Enkätundersökningen besvarades av totalt 98 elever från fyra olika klasser i gymnasieskolans årskurs ett. Fokusgruppintervjun genomfördes med fyra ungdomar från en av klasserna. I resultatet framgår att sociala medier fortfarande har en låg tillitsgrad jämfört med traditionella medier. Dessutom finner vi att ungdomarna själva vet att de påverkas, men tror att andra påverkas mer. De flesta känner sig också delaktiga i samhället, även via enkla handlingar på olika medier. Tyvärr framgår att socioekonomisk status till stor del avgör om känslan av delaktighet infinner sig. Ungdomarna använder också i stor grad sociala medier som mötesplats, men det är ovanligt att dessa möten konkretiseras i verkligheten. Didaktiska lärdomar går att finna i undersökningen. Resultaten visar att ungdomarna, oavsett gymnasieprogram, är källkritiska till innehållet på sociala medier. Intresset för politik är till stor del relaterat till socioekonomisk status, men intresset kan skilja sig stort även mellan olika klasser från samma program.