According to a study published in the journal Electoral Studies, citizens with higher trait narcissism are more likely to support people-centrism, a dimension of populism. However, people who score higher on Machiavellianism and psychopathy are less likely to support populist attitudes.
Populism has been widely conceptualized as a dangerous ideology that threatens democracy. Some studies have suggested that populist leaders have “darker” personalities, scoring higher on the Dark Triad traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and subclinical psychopathy. A new study led by Carol Galais and Guillem Rico aimed to investigate whether citizens who support populist attitudes have similar anti-social personalities.
The researchers considered two distinct aspects of populism — people-centrism and anti-elitism. People-centrist attitudes maintain that “the people” should be the focus of political decision-making. Anti-elitism focuses on denouncing the power of the elites who are believed to be corrupt and self-serving. Galais and Rico proposed that these dimensions of populism may be differentially related to the dark personality traits.
An online survey was distributed among 3,031 adults in Spain — a country with populist parties at both the far left and far right of the political spectrum. The surveys included a measure of populism, which included subscales for anti-elitism (e.g., “The government is pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for themselves”) and people-centrism (e.g., “The will of the people should be the highest principle in this country’s politics”). The questionnaires also included assessments of narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and left-right ideological orientation.
After controlling for age, sex, and ideology, it was revealed that all three of the dark personality traits were negatively related to populism. That is, people who scored higher in narcissism, Machiavellianism, or psychopathy were less likely to hold populist beliefs. There was, however, one exception. While narcissism was unrelated to anti-elitism, the trait was positively related to people-centrism — people with higher narcissism were more likely to endorse people-centrist attitudes. Interestingly, the two other dark personality traits were negatively related to both anti-elitism and people-centrism.
The link between narcissism and the people-centric dimension of populism may reflect the inflated ego and feelings of superiority that characterize narcissism. These personality traits might promote overconfidence in one’s political skills and feelings of entitlement to a role in politics.
The study authors say it may seem surprising that the dark traits are, for the most part, negatively related to populism, given that previous studies have suggested that people with populist beliefs tend to be more disagreeable. But the findings highlight the fact that populism is distinct from other traits with which it is correlated. Populism is “intrinsic to a belief in democracy,” the authors point out, and support for populist ideas does not necessarily mean support for populist parties.
“Resuming the debate about the virtues and dangers of populism, we can add the following to the existing findings: populist citizens are not “undesirable dinner guests.” Quite the contrary: they have notably low levels of Machiavellianism and psychopathy,” Galais and Rico say.
The study, “An unjustified bad reputation? The Dark Triad and support for populism”, was authored by Carol Galais and Guillem Rico.