A recent study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology sheds light on the unsettling correlation between certain personality traits and support for violence against civilians. The research, focused on Russian residents, reveals that individuals with traits associated with the Dark Triad — Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy — are more likely to endorse violence against civilians, with psychopathy having the most significant impact.
While prior research has examined how traits like agreeableness and openness are associated with support for peace, it has largely neglected the role of darker personality traits in shaping military attitudes. The Dark Triad traits describe a personality profile characterized by manipulation, self-centeredness, and a lack of empathy. Previous studies have linked these traits to various antisocial behaviors, including aggression and unethical conduct, but their relationship to military attitudes, particularly towards violence against civilians, remains underexplored.
Machiavellianism is characterized by manipulation, strategic thinking, and a cynical view of human nature; individuals high in this trait are adept at exploiting others for personal gain. Narcissism involves grandiosity, a strong need for admiration, and a sense of superiority, while psychopathy is marked by emotional coldness, lack of empathy, impulsivity, and antisocial behavior.
The study was conducted in three phases, each using a sample of Russian residents who were surveyed at different points in 2022, amidst the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Participants were recruited through Yandex Toloka, a Russian-language platform similar to Amazon Mechanical Turk. Inclusion criteria ensured that participants were Russian citizens, residing in Russia, and verified by their phone numbers. The samples were stratified to ensure equal representation of males and females across three age groups: 18-29, 30-44, and 45-60 years old.
Study 1 was conducted in May 2022, shortly after the invasion began, and involved 736 participants. Study 2 was conducted in October 2022, post-mobilization announcement, and included 795 participants. Study 3 was conducted in November 2022, after the official completion of mobilization, and included 752 participants.
The researchers found that support for military operations and mobilization was more strongly related to sociopsychological factors than to individual personality traits. Significant predictors included secure national identification, where individuals feel a stable and positive attachment to their country; national narcissism, which involves a defensive belief in national superiority; system justification, reflecting a belief in the fairness and desirability of the current social and political systems; and political trust, indicating confidence in political leaders and institutions.
These factors collectively foster a supportive attitude towards military actions, as individuals with these beliefs are more likely to view such operations as necessary and justified to protect and promote their nation’s interests.
Interestingly, personality traits from the Big Five, particularly conscientiousness and extraversion, also predicted support for mobilization, suggesting that socially adaptive traits can influence adherence to group norms and support for state policies.
In contrast, attitudes toward violence against civilians were primarily predicted by the Dark Triad traits, especially psychopathy. Individuals who scored high in Dark Triad traits were more likely to approve of extreme measures against civilians, such as appropriating residents’ property as trophies, restricting the freedom of non-combatant residents, physically eliminating non-combatants, destroying civil infrastructure, targeting essential services like heating stations and water pipes, and even the use of nuclear weapons.
These effects were largely mediated by general moral disengagement, a psychological mechanism that allows individuals to rationalize and justify harmful behaviors in a way that makes them seem acceptable or even necessary. Moral disengagement involves cognitive strategies such as minimizing the harm caused, displacing responsibility onto others, or dehumanizing the victims. For instance, someone high in psychopathy might justify violent actions by viewing the victims as less than human or deserving of such treatment.
“Our study confirms the distinction between the attitudes to military operations carried by one’s country and to violence against civilians, showing that support for military action in general does not imply approval of violence against civilians,” the researchers concluded. “However, the extent to which this difference is shaped by the social discourse is still unclear. Individual psychological factors seem to play a more important role in relation to those aspects of attitudes where the official discourse does not seem to have a definite position (i.e. violence against civilians).”
“At the same time, sociopsychological factors appear to have a greater influence on those aspects of military attitudes where the official sources express a definite position, imposing a group norm (e.g. a country’s participation in a military operation on the territory of another state and mobilisation). Future studies could include explicit measures of perceived norms or perceived authority position to understand their effect on individual attitudes.”
The study, “Dark Triad and the attitude toward military violence against civilians: The role of moral disengagement,” was authored by Olga Gulevich, Evgeny Osin, and Daniil Chernov.
