Do dark personality traits predict vote choices in U.S. presidential elections?

A new study published in the International Journal of Psychology sheds light on how personality traits, moral decision-making, and political attitudes are linked to voting behavior in the 2020 United States presidential election. The researchers found that political attitudes—particularly support for social hierarchy and authoritarian views—were stronger predictors of vote choice than personality traits like narcissism or sadism. However, moral priorities such as caring and fairness also played a meaningful role.

The study was based on the idea that political behavior is influenced not only by social factors like age, race, and education, but also by internal traits such as personality, values, and political beliefs. While traditional research often focuses on broad personality models like the “Big Five,” the authors of this study explored more targeted traits that might relate directly to political orientation.

In particular, they examined the so-called “Dark Tetrad” of personality traits: psychopathy, characterized by impulsivity and a lack of empathy; sadism, or the tendency to enjoy others’ suffering; narcissism, involving entitlement and self-importance; and Machiavellianism, which reflects manipulative, calculating behavior. These traits have been linked in past research to political conservatism and support for hierarchical systems.

To provide balance, the researchers also included “light” personality traits known as the Light Triad, which capture a more prosocial orientation. These include Kantianism, or treating others as ends rather than means; humanism, which emphasizes the inherent worth of every individual; and faith in humanity, or believing people are generally good.

Beyond personality, the researchers also examined political attitudes—such as social dominance orientation (the belief that some groups should dominate others), right-wing authoritarianism (submission to traditional authorities), and left-wing authoritarianism (favoring strict enforcement of progressive values)—alongside moral preferences rooted in Moral Foundations Theory, including care, fairness, purity, loyalty, liberty, and authority.

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“We were hoping to inform the Trump vs. Biden 2024 election but by the time the papers was even reviewed, it was already too late,” said study author Peter Karl Jonason, a full professor at Vizja University and the University of Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński and editor-in-chief of Advances in Cognitive Psychology and the International Journal of Psychology.

The study involved 280 adults in the United States who either voted in the 2020 presidential election or reported who they would have voted for. Participants were recruited through an online platform and compensated for their time. They completed a series of surveys that measured their personality traits, political attitudes, and moral values.

To assess moral values, the researchers used a decision-making task in which participants repeatedly chose between pairs of moral principles, such as “care” versus “fairness,” or “purity” versus “liberty.” This allowed the researchers to examine actual decision preferences rather than simply asking participants to rate agreement with various statements.

Vote choice was categorized into three groups: support for Joe Biden, Donald Trump, or a third-party candidate. The researchers then compared how personality traits, political attitudes, and moral choices differed across these groups, and whether these differences varied by gender.

Jonason and his colleagues found that political attitudes—particularly right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation—were the strongest predictors of vote choice. Trump supporters, for example, scored much higher on these measures than Biden supporters. In contrast, Biden voters were more likely to score high on left-wing authoritarianism, which involves strict support for progressive values and punishing those seen as regressive.

Moral decision-making also helped differentiate voters. Biden voters tended to choose care and fairness more often than Trump supporters, suggesting a greater focus on compassion and justice. Trump voters placed greater importance on purity and liberty, which may reflect concerns about cultural contamination and personal freedom. These findings align with previous research that ties liberal ideologies to individual-focused moral values and conservative ideologies to group-based moral concerns.

Interestingly, third-party voters emerged as a psychologically distinct group. Compared to Biden voters, they scored higher in psychopathy, held more conservative political attitudes, and showed stronger concerns with purity. Compared to Trump voters, they were more left-wing authoritarian, indicating support for enforcing progressive values, and placed greater emphasis on fairness. This suggests that third-party voters may reject both major candidates either because of ideological extremity or because of moral objections, depending on the direction of their attitudes.

In terms of personality traits, the study found no meaningful relationship between voting behavior and either dark or light traits. Although men, on average, scored higher in traits like Machiavellianism and sadism, and women tended to score higher in humanism and moral concern for care, these traits did not help predict who people voted for. This supports the idea that such broad personality traits may not be very useful for understanding specific behaviors like electoral choices.

“Light and dark personality traits are nearly worthless in predicting voting,” Jonason told PsyPost. “Moral values play a minor role, but a larger role in determining third party voting. Political attitudes — left or right — are, unsurprisingly, primary predictors of voting behavior. I was disappointed to learn how irrelevant the Dark Tetrad was but I was not surprised. Traits are distal, general processes and can really only link to political behaviors through more proximal factors like attitudes.”

The study — like all research — includes some limitations. First, the sample included relatively few Trump or third-party voters, which may limit the generalizability of the findings. Online recruitment platforms also tend to attract younger and more liberal participants, which could further skew the data.

Second, the study focused only on the 2020 U.S. presidential election, which occurred under unique circumstances including the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread political unrest. These conditions may have influenced voting behavior in ways that do not generalize to other elections.

Nevertheless, the findings indicate that to understand political behavior, it may be more productive to focus on values and attitudes that are closely tied to policy preferences and group identity, rather than relying on personality frameworks that are too broad for specific predictions.

Regarding future research, Jonason said “this was a one-off, I think. We are more interested in moral choices and how they might be a function of contextual variance.”

The study, “Political Attitudes and Moral Decisions, Not Personality, Predict 2020 US Presidential Choice,” was authored by Peter K. Jonason, Ömer Erdoğan, Aaron Hoegn, S. Brian Hood.