New study finds narcissism is linked to violent intentions on both sides of the abortion debate

People who score high in hostile, manipulative forms of narcissism are more likely to endorse illegal and violent political actions on both sides of the American abortion debate, according to new research published in Current Psychology. The researchers argue that this pattern fits their view that some aggressive, self-centered people may treat political movements on either the left or the right as a vehicle for conflict and excitement, rather than being driven purely by moral convictions about reproductive rights or the unborn.

Political scientists generally distinguish between everyday activism and political radicalism. Activism involves legal, peaceful efforts to bring about social or political change, such as signing petitions, donating money, or marching in permitted rallies. Radicalism, by contrast, involves a willingness to break the law and use violence to achieve political goals, such as vandalizing property or attacking police officers and political opponents. While many psychological models focus on how social pressures or feelings of exclusion push ordinary citizens toward extremism, psychologists have increasingly examined how underlying personality traits attract certain people to political conflict in the first place.

To explain this attraction, psychologist Ann Krispenz and psychology professor Alex Bertrams of the Division of Educational Psychology at the University of Bern in Switzerland developed a framework called the dark-ego-vehicle principle (DEVP). According to this principle, people with socially aversive personality traits sometimes join noble-sounding causes not because they genuinely care about the issue, but because the movement serves as a convenient vehicle to satisfy their own selfish desires.

A central trait in this framework is antagonistic narcissism, the hostile core of narcissism characterized by arrogance, manipulation, a sense of entitlement, a lack of empathy, reactive anger, and thrill-seeking. Unlike extraverted narcissism, which involves outgoing leadership and charm, or neurotic narcissism, which centers on insecurity and sensitivity to shame, antagonistic narcissism is associated with tendencies to pick fights, demean others, and seek out dangerous excitement.

Early tests of this principle grew out of a 2023 study, in which Krispenz and Bertrams found that antagonistic narcissism and psychopathic tendencies predicted support for violent left-wing revolution, whereas concern for social justice and helping others did not. The pair later linked narcissistic traits to greater involvement in environmental activism and, in a 2024 study of sexual minority and gender identity movements, found a similar pattern among people with grandiose narcissistic traits and a desire to show off their own virtue. Research in 2024, conducted by a different researcher, also linked dark personality traits to environmental activism.

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Because those initial studies focused on causes typically associated with the political left, observers could question whether the phenomenon applied only to progressive movements. Krispenz and Bertrams argued that their principle is ideologically impartial, meaning that hostile narcissists may be drawn to any political cause on the left or the right as long as it gives them an outlet for aggression.

Following their own 2024 longitudinal study that linked dark personality traits to both left-leaning and right-leaning forms of antisemitism, the authors sought to test whether this nonpartisan pattern holds true in the context of political activism. The U.S. abortion debate provided a fitting test case, as the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade sparked renewed protests and some militant activity on both sides.

“Our hypothesis was based on the Dark-Ego-Vehicle Principle,” study authors Krispenz and Bertrams told PsyPost. “The DEVP assumes that individuals high in dark personality traits participate in prosocial activism if and as long as they can instrumentalize their participation to satisfy their ego-focused needs (e.g., for aggression). However, the scope of application for the DEVP should not be restricted to a specific political/ideological side; rather, individuals high in dark personality traits should be drawn to either form of activism as long as it allows for the satisfaction of their own dark-ego needs. Thus, we investigated the validity of this assumption regarding both pro-choice and pro-life activism in a U.S. sample.”

To test whether antagonistic narcissism predicts radicalism on both sides of the abortion divide, the researchers recruited a diverse sample of U.S. adults through the online research platform Prolific. After removing incomplete entries, duplicate submissions, participants who failed an attention check, and 81 respondents who did not take a side on abortion, the final sample included 872 adults with an average age of 43. Within this group, 501 participants (57.5 percent) identified as pro-choice and 371 participants (42.5 percent) identified as pro-life. The study’s main hypotheses and analyses were preregistered.

Participants completed a 60-item personality questionnaire that measured antagonistic narcissism alongside extraverted narcissism and neurotic narcissism on a 1-to-5 scale. They also rated their willingness to engage in legal, nonviolent activism (such as traveling an hour to attend a peaceful rally for their abortion stance) and illegal, violent radicalism (such as attacking security forces or engaging in unlawful actions for their group) on a 1-to-7 scale. In addition, the survey measured everyday altruism, such as giving money or help to strangers, along with three ideological attitudes: left-wing authoritarianism, right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation.

Across the entire sample, participants generally favored peaceful action over violence, reporting an average score of 4.12 out of 7 for legal activism intention compared to a relatively low average of 2.26 out of 7 for radicalism intention. Average scores for antagonistic narcissism were also modest at 2.07 out of 5, and pro-choice and pro-life participants did not differ in a statistically significant way in their levels of antagonistic narcissism. In line with the researchers’ primary expectations, higher antagonistic narcissism was strongly associated with a greater willingness to engage in illegal and violent abortion-related actions across the total sample (a correlation of .41). This relationship held true within both the pro-choice group (a correlation of .37) and the pro-life group (a correlation of .46).

“We found a meaningful and positive relationship of antagonistic narcissism and abortion-related radicalism intention,” the researchers noted. “Thus, on both political/ideological sides (i.e., for pro-choice as well as pro-life activism), narcissistic individuals seem to participate in abortion-related activism for the satisfaction of their antagonistic needs (e.g., for aggression).”

The link between antagonistic narcissism and radicalism intention remained robust even after the researchers statistically controlled for age, gender, altruism, extraverted narcissism, and neurotic narcissism. The association also held up when the authors accounted for participants’ willingness to engage in legal, peaceful activism. Peaceful activism intention correlated moderately with altruism across the sample (a correlation of .33), suggesting that lawful advocacy tends to go hand in hand with a habit of helping others.

Before peaceful activism was controlled for, altruism showed a small positive link to radicalism intention, but once peaceful activism was factored in, altruism showed no statistically significant link to violent radicalism, whereas antagonistic narcissism remained a strong predictor.

Before analyzing the data, the authors predicted that the link between antagonistic narcissism and radicalism would be stronger among pro-choice supporters than pro-life supporters, reasoning that pro-life conservatives typically value law and order and might feel reluctant to endorse illegal tactics. While the overall strength of the correlation did not differ in a statistically significant way between the two camps (and was, if anything, numerically larger among pro-life participants), an exploratory analysis of the data curves uncovered a notable difference in how radicalism emerged across the two groups.

Among pro-choice participants, the willingness to use illegal or violent tactics rose steadily in a straight line as antagonistic narcissism increased. Among pro-life participants, the relationship followed a curved, U-shaped trajectory.

For the majority of participants who scored in the low-to-moderate range of antagonistic narcissism (representing 71.1 percent of the sample), pro-choice individuals expressed higher radicalism intentions than pro-life individuals. At the highest levels of antagonistic narcissism, however, pro-life radicalism intentions accelerated sharply and caught up with the pro-choice group.

Because this curved pattern came from an exploratory analysis, it warrants caution: the difference in curvature between the groups weakened to a statistical trend when the researchers reran the analysis using a method less sensitive to extreme scores. Relatively few participants scored at the very top of the narcissism scale, with about 13 percent scoring well above the sample average.

“We originally assumed a linear relationship between antagonistic narcissism and individuals’ abortion-related radicalism intention,” Krispenz and Bertrams said. “However, we found such a relationship only for the individuals of the pro-choice group. For the pro-life group, results unexpectedly revealed a u-shaped effect.”

The authors suggest that because conservative circles generally emphasize respect for authority and law enforcement, moderate levels of hostility may not be enough to push a pro-life supporter toward endorsing law-breaking. “Hence, radicalized pro-life activism including violent and aggressive acts seems – just like pro-choice activism – to be a fitting dark-ego vehicle for some antagonistic individuals, but only at more extreme levels of antagonistic narcissism when self-restriction is particularly low,” the researchers added.

The researchers also examined how broader political attitudes related to violent intentions within each camp. Among pro-choice participants, radicalism intention was strongly associated with left-wing authoritarianism (a correlation of .44), a mindset that endorses using force and censorship to overthrow established hierarchies in the name of progressive values. Among pro-life participants, radicalism intention was not statistically significantly related to right-wing authoritarianism (a correlation of -.07), which emphasizes strict obedience to traditional authorities and social norms. Instead, pro-life radicalism showed a small positive association with social dominance orientation (a correlation of .11), a trait characterized by a desire to aggressively dominate rival groups and maintain group-based hierarchies.

“The most important takeaway is that the association between antagonistic narcissism and radicalism intentions was found among people on both sides of the abortion debate,” Dominika Adamczyk, a researcher at the Political Cognition Laboratory at the Institute of Psychology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, who was not involved in the study, told PsyPost. “I think this is interesting because it suggests that, when trying to understand extreme political engagement, we should look not only at people’s political views, but also at individual psychological characteristics.”

These results align with a study covered by PsyPost in 2020, which found that socially aversive personality traits were linked to both authoritarian political correctness on the left and white identitarian beliefs on the right. While that earlier research examined a broader set of traits (psychopathy, general narcissism, Machiavellianism, and entitlement) in relation to extreme ideological beliefs rather than violent activism intentions around abortion, both studies link hostile, self-serving personality traits to authoritarian attitudes on both the left and the right.

“This finding fits with previous studies suggesting that narcissism can be associated with extreme political views on both sides of the political spectrum,” Adamczyk noted. “However, narcissism has often been discussed in relation to right-wing political attitudes, and relatively few studies have examined different forms of political beliefs and action among narcissistic individuals across the ideological spectrum. The present study extends this work by looking at intentions to engage in radical political action among people with opposing political positions.”

There are a few things to keep in mind when interpreting these results. Pro-choice and pro-life participants had similar levels of antagonistic narcissism, average scores for both antagonistic narcissism and radicalism intention were relatively low, and willingness to engage in peaceful activism was more closely tied to altruism than to antagonistic narcissism.

“The results of the present research do not demonstrate that any abortion-related stance or activism is per se radical or narcissistic,” Krispenz and Bertrams emphasized. “This interpretation of the results is supported by the results of the present study which show that altruism was significantly associated with abortion-related activism intention as well. These results demonstrate that individuals also participate in abortion-related activism in the pursuit of pro-social goals (e.g., to protect the women’s rights or the life of the unborn respectively).”

“We should also remember that political engagement or political activism, both violent and non-violent, is shaped by more than individual personality traits, and group dynamics and social context are crucial as well,” Adamczyk added.

The authors argue that a subset of antagonistic individuals could harm peaceful advocacy groups on either side, though the study surveyed members of the public who identified with a stance rather than members of activist organizations.

“Our results show that abortion-related activism on both ideological sides can be attractive for antagonistic narcissists,” the authors explained. “The potential for illegal and violent behavior of such narcissistic individuals may seriously harm the activism, for example by causing irreparable reputational damage to the activist movement. Such reputational damage may lead to dwindling support for the activist movement by the public and could even be wielded against the movement. Thus, the respective activist groups striving for social change in a peaceful way as well as the public should be made aware of the narcissistic ‘enemies’ from within activist movements.”

Methodological constraints also limit what the data can show. Because the study relied on survey responses collected at a single point in time, it cannot establish that narcissistic traits cause people to radicalize, nor can it track whether narcissistic individuals abandon a movement once it stops providing thrills. In addition, the researchers measured self-reported willingness to commit illegal or violent acts rather than actual real-world behavior, and they did not directly measure whether specific motives like thrill-seeking or anger expression drove those intentions.

“I have high confidence in the observed associations,” Adamczyk said. “The study has a relatively large sample, preregistered hypotheses, and the findings remained robust after controlling for several relevant variables. However, I would be more cautious about interpreting what causes this association. I see the results as convincing evidence of an association, but not as a definitive explanation of why it occurs.”

Future studies could track real-world activist groups over time and test other polarizing debates, such as gun control, to see how antagonistic personalities operate across different cultural and political landscapes.

“Currently, we are investigating the DEVP with regard to the need for chaos (i.e., the desire for the destruction of the established order and societal structures),” Krispenz and Bertrams told PsyPost. “Thus, we are adapting the need for chaos scale for German, French, and Italian samples. This will allow us to investigate the DEVP regarding phenomena like the current violent protests in France and Italy.”

“I would like to see research examining how individual characteristics interact with group processes and social context to shape political engagement,” Adamczyk said. “I think we need to understand not just who is drawn to radical political action, but also under what conditions and through what processes this willingness develops.”

The study, “Ideological impartiality of the dark-ego-vehicle principle: antagonistic narcissism is associated with pro-choice as well as pro-life radicalism intention,” was authored by Ann Krispenz and Alex Bertrams.