Psychopathic traits are associated with the endorsement of populist attitudes, according to new research published in the journal Electoral Studies. The findings shed light on the psychological foundations of populism, focusing on how the Dark Triad of personality interacts with populist beliefs across various European nations.
Populism is a political approach that seeks to champion the common people against a perceived elite or establishment that is considered corrupt or out of touch with the general population’s needs. At its core, populism divides society into two antagonistic groups: the pure people and the corrupt elite. Populism can manifest across the political spectrum, from left to right, and has been a driving force behind various political movements and leaders around the world, including Donald Trump in the United States.
The Dark Triad, on the other hand, refers to a trio of negative personality traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. Machiavellianism is characterized by manipulativeness, a cynical disregard for morality, and a focus on self-interest. Narcissism involves grandiosity, entitlement, and a lack of empathy. Psychopathy is marked by impulsivity, a lack of remorse, and antisocial behavior.
While these traits are considered socially aversive, they lie within the normal range of human personality and are not necessarily pathological. However, they have been linked to various negative outcomes in interpersonal relationships and social settings.
The authors of the new study, Nathalie Hofstetter and Maximilian Filsinger of the University of Bern, sought to better understand the psychological foundations of populism, particularly how the Dark Triad traits relate to populist attitudes. Despite the burgeoning interest in populism, its psychological underpinnings remain relatively underexplored, especially regarding how darker personality traits may influence one’s susceptibility to populist ideologies.
“While most research featured general personality traits, we focus on the role of darker nuances of personality about which even less is known,” the researchers explained. “This is surprising as populism is generally described in negative terms as it pits distinct groups against each other resulting in a confrontative style of politics. Furthermore, the Dark Triad traits of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy are believed to have distinct relevance to the domain of politics and have been shown to characterize populist leaders.”
In the spring of 2020, the researchers surveyed more than 6,000 individuals in six European democracies: Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, and the United Kingdom. This choice of countries provided a diverse set of contexts in terms of the historical background, ideological nature, and the institutional settings of populism. To enhance representativeness, quota sampling was employed based on age, gender, and education, with an additional consideration for language in Switzerland.
To measure the Dark Triad traits, the researchers used a slightly adapted and shortened version of the Short Dark Triad (SD3) scale. They also evaluated the Big Five personality traits using the Ten-Item Personality Inventory (TIPI). This instrument is renowned for its brevity and effectiveness in capturing the broad dimensions of personality, including openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.
Populist attitudes were operationalized as a multidimensional concept, encompassing people centrism (e.g. “The will of the people should be the highest principle in this country’s politics”), anti-elitism (e.g. “I would rather be represented by a citizen than by a specialized politician”), and Manicheanism (e.g. “You can tell if a person is good or bad if you know their politics”).
The researchers discovered that among the Dark Triad traits, psychopathy emerged as the most consistent predictor of populist attitudes, displaying a significant and robust relationship across the surveyed countries. Individuals scoring high on psychopathy were found to possess stronger populist attitudes overall, particularly marked by a pronounced Manichean outlook, which views society and politics through a lens of moralistic good-versus-evil dichotomies.
Interestingly, while people with high levels of psychopathy tended to embrace populist attitudes more fervently, they were less inclined towards people centrism, suggesting a nuanced interaction between specific components of populism and darker personality traits.
Machiavellianism also showed a noteworthy, albeit less systematic, association with populist attitudes. The trait was positively related to populist attitudes in several countries, indicating that individuals who exhibit manipulative and self-serving behaviors might be more susceptible to populist ideologies. This relationship, however, was not universally observed across all the countries studied, hinting at the potential influence of contextual factors on how personality traits translate into political attitudes.
Contrary to expectations, narcissism did not display a significant relationship with populist attitudes. This finding challenges some of the preconceived notions about the role of self-centeredness and entitlement in driving populist inclinations, suggesting that the appeal of populism cannot simply be attributed to narcissistic tendencies. The absence of a strong link between narcissism and populist attitudes across the diverse political landscapes of the surveyed countries underscores the complexity of the psychological underpinnings of populism.
The findings also indicated that conscientiousness and agreeableness were particularly relevant in understanding the populist personality profile. High levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness were generally associated with lower levels of populist attitudes, suggesting that individuals who are more dutiful, reliable, cooperative, and empathetic might be less drawn to populist ideologies.
But the study — like all research — includes some limitations, such as the use of short scales for measuring personality traits and the cross-sectional nature of the data, which precludes causal inferences. The researchers call for future studies to adopt more nuanced measures and sophisticated designs to explore the contingent effects of personality traits on populist attitudes across different contexts.
“Despite these caveats, we are confident that the present study is a meaningful contribution to the still very sparse and inconclusive literature on the (dark) personality correlates of populist attitudes and provides important implications for future research in the field… our study provides a stepping-stone for a more rigorous testing of the contingent effects of personality on populist attitudes,” the researchers concluded.
The study, “A justified bad reputation after all? Dark personality traits and populist attitudes in comparative perspective,” was authored by Nathalie Hofstetter and Maximilian Filsinger
