The Dark Side of Politics: Participation and the Dark Triad

Abstract

Personality traits are one piece in the larger puzzle of political participation, but most studies focus on the Five-Factor Model of personality. We argue that the normative implications of the influence of personality on politics are increased when the personality traits being studied correlate with negative social behaviors. We investigate the role of the Dark Triad on political participation as mediated through political beliefs such as interest and knowledge. We find that Psychopathy and Narcissism are positively associated with political interest, but Narcissism is also negatively associated with political knowledge. In addition, both Psychopathy and Narcissism exert a direct, positive influence on participation. Our results imply that individuals exhibiting higher levels of Narcissism are not only less knowledgeable but also more interested in politics and more likely to participate when given the opportunity.

Keywords

personality political behavior participation

Introduction

Widespread electoral participation is fundamental to the functioning and legitimacy of a democratic system (Barber, 1984; Dryzek and List, 2003; Putnam, 2000), yet a focus on understanding what predicts participation can lead scholars to avoid normative questions about the quality of that participation. Nowhere is this deficit more obvious than in the study of personality and politics (see, for example, Gerber et al., 2011b; Mondak, 2010). While numerous scholars have documented the general personality traits that predict political behavior, little work has been done to determine whether reliance on certain traits is ultimately beneficial to democracy.

A significant reason for this omission rests on the dominant personality structure currently used in political science, the Big Five traits of Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism (Goldberg, 1990; McCrae and Costa, 2003). While the labels used for the tails of these personality traits (Extraversion vs Introversion, for example) carry affective judgment, the underlying psychological traits are generally seen by academics as normatively equivalent. That is, while the general public may prefer to see themselves as extraverted rather than introverted, the academic literature tends to treat these as normatively equivalent personality traits.¹

While we are sympathetic to these approaches to the study of personality and politics, we believe the next steps in our field must address questions about the quality of political participation. Some work on the Big Five has begun this quest, finding, for example, that the effects of the Big Five traits on group-based policy positions are mediated both through party identification and stereotyping behavior (Chen and Palmer, 2018). We take a different approach in this article, however, and examine a set of personality traits that often convey certain negative interpersonal behaviors.²

In this study, we turn our attention to the Dark Triad of Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, and Narcissism (Paulhus and Williams, 2002). We stress here that while both the Big Five and Dark Triad have preferred endpoints in the general public (e.g. people would rather see themselves as conscientious instead of not, just as they would rather not see themselves as narcissistic), our argument rests on the political consequences of certain individuals participating in politics, rather than the social labels attached to these personality traits. In this sense, the focus on the Big Five in most of the personality and politics literature misses an opportunity to examine the darker, less socially desirable traits (the Dark Triad) that may alter political outcomes in a normatively undesirable way.

In particular, we assess whether these three traits influence political participation and, if so, whether the effect is mediated through commonly known pathways such as political knowledge or interest. We demonstrate that the Dark Triad, and the trait of Narcissism in particular, presents a normatively troubling portrait of political participation. Interestingly, while Psychopathy and Machiavellianism exhibit few participatory effects, Narcissism is associated with higher levels of political interest and is also associated with lower levels of political knowledge. Thus, individuals scoring higher in Narcissism are not only more likely to be interested and involved in politics, but they are also less knowledgeable about politics in general. At times, the effect of Narcissism is mediated through interest, while at other times, the trait exerts a direct effect on participation.

Given these results, we are likely to see individuals higher in Narcissism be overrepresented among the most active participants in politics. While we may be less concerned if extraverted individuals are more likely to participate than introverted individuals, we should be somewhat more concerned about these darker traits. Thinking about the Dark Triad, if individuals higher in Narcissism participate at higher rates, we are likely to see downstream effects on who gets elected. As Hart et al. (2018) note, individuals who score higher on the Dark Triad traits are more likely to support candidates who share these same traits. Thus, if these individuals are participating at higher rates, we are likely to see individuals higher in Narcissism overrepresented in the voting public and, by extension, in the ranks of elected officials. While research shows both positive and negative effects of narcissism in political leaders (Furtner et al., 2017; Wilhelm et al., 2013), Watts et al. (2013) highlight negative outcomes of narcissistic leaders in the United States, linking these presidents to congressional impeachment and ethics inquiries. The connection between Narcissism, interest, and participation, therefore, raises some potentially normatively troubling concerns about the representativeness and performance of elected officials.

Political Participation

While previous work has examined the Dark Triad as it relates to political outcomes such as ambition (Blais et al., 2019), political orientation (Gay et al., 2019), and civic duty (Pruysers et al., 2019), our focus is on common, everyday acts of political participation. We begin by noting that we take no issue with the bulk of research on participation that finds a strong influence from socio-demographic factors. Education, age, and gender as well as the distribution of socio-economic and political resources are just some of the many variables that we believe explain participation (Brady et al., 1995; Wolfinger and Rosenstone, 1980). In addition, engagement in civic life (Verba et al., 1995) and campaign mobilization (Rosenstone and Hansen, 2003) clearly also play a role in convincing citizens to vote or engage with politics.

The simplest form of political participation for many citizens is voting, and we begin our assessment here. We understand, however, that voting is not the sole means of political participation available to citizens. Therefore, we also examine a range of alternative participatory acts, such as donating money, attending political meetings, or signing petitions. In addition, we examine forms of political consumerism and other less traditional forms of participation, such as engaging in economic boycotts or civil disobedience (Gidengil et al., 2004; Stolle and Micheletti, 2013).

We enter the conversation by examining additional factors that lead to various forms of participation. We focus first on the effect of political knowledge, interest, and efficacy. Delli-Carpini and Keeter (1996) convincingly argue for the importance of political knowledge as a determinant of consistency in issue attitudes as well as likelihood of voting. Likewise, scholars have long asserted the importance of political interest in predicting turnout (Campbell et al., 1960; Lewis-Beck et al., 2008). Similarly, political efficacy, or the degree to which one believes they are capable of understanding politics (internal efficacy) and are listened to (external efficacy), is strongly associated with participation (Craig et al., 1990; Craig and Maggiotto, 1982; Niemi et al., 1991).

Like these models, we believe that political participation is an additive function both of individual socio-economic factors (e.g. age, education, income) and of political factors (e.g. efficacy, knowledge, interest). That is, socio-economic and political factors work as individual factors to alter the likelihood of participation. Recent work, however, suggests a role for a third factor that functions in an additive manner: pre-political personality traits. This work primarily focuses on the Big Five traits, with evidence emerging that Openness to Experience and Extraversion positively predict turnout, while Agreeableness and Neuroticism are negatively related to turnout (Gerber et al., 2011a; Mondak, 2010; Mondak and Halperin, 2008). These results are not limited to voting, as various forms of campaign participation are also correlated with general personality traits (Gerber et al., 2013; Mondak et al., 2010). Nor is the predictive power of personality limited to behavior. Differences in personality also help explain political attitudes such as vote choice (Schoen and Schumann, 2007), political ideology (Chirumbolo and Leone, 2010), political ambition (Blais et al., 2019; Peterson and Palmer, 2019), civic duty (Blais and Labbé St. Vincent, 2011; Pruysers et al., 2019), and trust (Mondak, 2010).

We note, however, that the nature of personality as a long-standing and stable set of characteristics allows for the possibility that the effect of personality on political outcomes is not simply direct or additive. Personality traits affect many of the attitudes and decisions made in our daily lives and, as such, they can potentially exert an influence on behaviors such as political participation by altering known predictors of participation. Prior work (Chen and Palmer, 2018), for example, has demonstrated the value of this approach, finding that the Big Five personality traits exert an influence on attitudes about racialized policies both directly (as in an additive model) and indirectly (as in a mediation model) by altering party identification, authoritarianism, and stereotyping.

We build on the extensive personality research while extending the analysis in two directions. First, we move beyond the Big Five framework to examine the Dark Triad personality traits (detailed below). Second, we examine a two-step process of personality influence, testing for both direct and mediated effects of personality on participation through known political influences (a la Chen and Palmer, 2018).

The Dark Triad as Political Traits

While a great deal of scholarly attention has been paid to the Big Five and the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality in politics, relatively little work examines the negative “dark” personality traits of Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, and Narcissism (Paulhus and Williams, 2002). On the whole, the Dark Triad personality traits are associated with aggressiveness, impulsivity, and callousness, and have been described as “short-term, agentic, [and] exploitative” (Jonason and Webster, 2010: 420).

Some may wonder whether there is incremental value in studying the Dark Triad when more universal models (such as the FFM) are thought to capture most of the variation in human personality (Goldberg, 1990; McCrae and Costa, 2003). There are several reasons to study the Dark Triad. First, there is still debate regarding the extent to which the FFM does indeed adequately capture the underlying dimensions of general personality (see Ashton et al., 2014). The HEXACO model of personality, for instance, is critical of the FFM and adds a sixth general personality trait (Honesty–Humility) which many argue is missing from the Big Five (Lee and Ashton, 2004). Second, while components of the Dark Triad are captured by facets or aspects of the FFM, evidence suggests that the dark traits themselves are not adequately captured and predicted by the FFM/Big Five (Lee and Ashton, 2005). Lee and Ashton (2005) do, however, find that their sixth factor (Honesty–Humility) is strongly and negatively correlated with the Dark Triad and may be a component of general personality that underlies the construct. Third, recent research reveals that the dark traits are in fact related to a variety of political outcomes (Gay et al., 2019; Peterson and Palmer, 2019; Pruysers et al., 2019), and can yield explanatory power even after controlling for general personality traits (Blais and Pruysers, 2017; Pruysers and Blais, 2019).

Given the findings of Lee and Ashton (2005), the almost exclusive focus in political science on the Big Five/FFM (Gerber et al., 2011a, 2011b; Mondak, 2010; Mondak and Halperin, 2008), and the extensive literature on the Dark Triad in organizational and leadership behavior (DeShong et al., 2015; Furtner et al., 2017; Jonason et al., 2012; O’Boyle et al., 2012), we believe there is value in extending personality and politics research to include the Dark Triad.

Furthermore, Sniderman’s (1975) work provides convergent evidence on a similar personality construct. While Sniderman focuses on the positively framed trait of self-esteem, much of his work dovetails closely with the Dark Triad trait of Narcissism. Indeed, pieces of his tripartite definition of self-esteem (personal unworthiness, interpersonal competence, and status inferiority) are mimicked in part by the theoretical foundations identified by Jones and Paulhus (2014) for Narcissism (exhibitionism, leadership/grandiosity, and entitlement/grandiosity). While self-esteem and narcissism do not perfectly match, Sniderman’s results demonstrating lower levels of participation and efficacy as self-esteem decreases suggests a potential role for Narcissism as well.

We begin by describing each of the Dark Triad traits and outline our expectations for their influence on political beliefs and participation. Machiavellianism is best understood as a tendency toward manipulation and calculation in behavior (Goldberg, 1990; Lee and Ashton, 2004; McCrae and Costa, 2003). Machiavellians are therefore characterized as being cunning, self-beneficial, less intrinsically motivated, and power oriented (Barker, 1994; Judge et al., 2009; McHoskey, 1999). As measured by Christie and Geis (1970), for instance, Machiavellianism is characterized by a lack of affect in interpersonal relationships (i.e. a willingness to exploit and manipulate), a lack of concern with conventional morality (i.e. a willingness to cheat or lie), and a general lack of trust in others.

Of the three components of the Dark Triad, we are most ambivalent about the potential effects of Machiavellianism. While Machiavellianism may be seen as prima facie linked to politics, after all the trait is named after Machiavelli’s the Prince, we see no strong theoretical reason to expect higher or lower levels of interest, knowledge, or efficacy among individuals scoring higher on this trait. While we might expect those high in Machiavellianism to engage in specific political activities (i.e. engaging in strategic voting, running for office, or seeking out opportunities for patronage politics), we might also expect Machiavellians to avoid other forms of participation like ethical political consumerism or other acts of participation that are unlikely to have an influence on political outcomes (i.e. casting a ballot in an election with a clear front-runner). As such, it is not clear that individuals who are cold, manipulating, and calculating should exhibit a greater likelihood of participating in politics in general. Thus, for Machiavellianism, we simply assess the research question of what is the effect of Machiavellianism on political beliefs and participation?

Psychopathy is generally characterized by high levels of interpersonal manipulation, impulsiveness, antisocial behaviors, and callousness toward others (Hare, 2003).³ Indeed, those scoring higher in Psychopathy are typically described as being “destructive for themselves and others” (Rauthmann and Kolar, 2012: 885; see also Williams et al., 2007). As Porter et al. (2018: 612) write, “psychopathic individuals are typically adept con artists, often with long histories of frauds and scams. Some may even become cult leaders, corrupt politicians, or successful corporate leaders” (see also Babiak and Hare, 2006; Black et al., 2014; Blais et al., 2014).⁴

That is not to say that all aspects of Psychopathy are necessarily negative. Recently, aspects of Psychopathy (viz. fearless-dominance) have been linked to presidential achievement and performance (Lilienfeld et al., 2012; Smith et al., 2013), and Nai (2019) finds that politicians scoring higher in Psychopathy achieve better results at the ballot box (i.e. electoral success). Furthermore, in an experimental context, Hart et al. (2018) demonstrate that individuals who share dark personality traits with politicians are generally more supportive of those politicians.

To the extent that individuals high in Psychopathy embody these characteristics, the desire for interpersonal manipulation could lead to higher levels of interest in the competitive world of politics. In addition, if certain aspects of Psychopathy are overrepresented among some politicians as previous research implies, this could lead to greater levels of support and interest in the process. We expect, therefore, that individuals high in Psychopathy will be more interested in politics than those low in Psychopathy (H1). In contrast, however, we expect that the tendency toward antisocial behavior should produce a decrease in political participation among those high in Psychopathy, relative to those low in Psychopathy (H2).⁵ Thus, while congruence between an individual’s own personality and that of a politician’s should increase interest in politics, the antisocial nature of Psychopathy should reduce actual participation in the social aspects of politics. This would be consistent with recent research that reveals a negative relationship between Psychopathy and civic duty (Pruysers et al., 2019).

The third trait, Narcissism, is best understood as arrogance and entitlement, as well as possessing grand visions about one’s own abilities (Rhodewalt and Peterson, 2009). Rauthmann and Kolar (2012: 884), for example, describe narcissists as possessing “extreme vanity, self-absorption, arrogance, and entitlement.” In line with this description, we expect individuals high in Narcissism to have an inflated view of their own importance and abilities, resulting in higher levels of both efficacy and political interest. If narcissistic individuals view themselves through the lens of self-importance and arrogance, they should be more confident that they can understand and influence politics (efficacy) to a greater extent than those who are more modest about themselves.

While the narcissism–efficacy link is fairly straightforward, we recognize that increased efficacy does not necessarily translate into increased interest in politics. We believe, however, that examining a facet of Narcissism (viz. Jones and Paulhus, 2014, leadership/authority facet) provides some justification for this hypothesis. Indeed, examining the items tapping this facet in the Short Dark Triad scale (SD3; which assesses whether people see themselves as a natural leader and exhibitionism, or the belief that one should not hide their abilities) as well as Sniderman’s (1975) work showing higher self-esteem among elites indicates that individuals high in Narcissism should have a tendency toward greater interest and involvement in politics.

Similar to Psychopathy, there is good evidence that Narcissism is related to success among politicians (Sniderman, 1975; Watts et al., 2013) and, thus, support for politicians who share narcissistic traits should also increase, consistent with Hart et al. (2018). Blais and Pruysers (2017) find that Narcissism is associated with perceptions of qualifications for office and likelihood of success, suggesting that those high in Narcissism likely perceive a stronger connection between themselves and politicians than those low in Narcissism. Therefore, to the extent that Narcissism is overrepresented in politicians, individuals high in Narcissism see themselves reflected in these politicians, and increase their support for these politicians, we should also see an increase in interest and engagement with the political process. We expect that individuals high in Narcissism will demonstrate higher levels of political interest and efficacy compared to those low in Narcissism (H3). While we have no theoretical reason to expect that Narcissism relates to political knowledge, we do investigate whether increased confidence in one’s political acumen is justified by assessing whether Narcissism also correlates with increased political knowledge.

In line with decades of research on interest and participation (Campbell et al., 1960; Lewis-Beck et al., 2008), we believe that Narcissism should indirectly increase political participation through increased political interest (H4). That is, because Narcissism is likely to increase interest, this increased interest should affect participation. The effect of Narcissism, therefore, may be indirectly carried through increased interest. Finally, a direct, positive effect of Narcissism on participation should also exist, as individuals with an inflated view of their abilities should be more inclined to participate in activities, ceteris paribus (H5).

Methods

Sample

We test these hypotheses and research questions using a sample of 371 Canadian citizens over the age of 18. While we note this is a relatively small sample size, we made a conscious decision to utilize a smaller sample to allow for a more extensive battery of personality tests. The limitations of shorter personality scales (the “dirty dozen” or the 10-Item Personality Inventory) are well documented and we opted for more extensive measures to fully capture the depth of personality. While short measures are useful for inclusion on omnibus surveys, when given the opportunity to use a more fulsome measure, we decided to trade sample size for improvements in the measurement of personality.

Examining the demographics of our sample, the majority of participants were women (58%), the average age of the participants was 49, and roughly one-third had completed a University degree (34%). Subjects were recruited from all provinces, with the plurality coming from Ontario (47%) followed by Québec (18%), Alberta (10%), British Columbia (6%), Nova Scotia (6%), Manitoba (5%), Saskatchewan (4%), Newfoundland and Labrador (3%), New Brunswick (2%), and Prince Edward Island (<1%). The median income range was between $30,000 and $60,000. The sample was purchased through the Qualtrics online panel. Respondents are selected from the Qualtrics pool using a quota system, which used age, gender, and education to screen and select participants that reflected the population of Canada. For a comparison table of our sample to general population characteristics, readers should refer to Appendix 1.

Measures

The Dark Triad

We measure the Dark Triad using the SD3 (Jones and Paulhus, 2014), which is a 27-item measure of sub-clinical Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, and Narcissism. Jones and Paulhus validated the SD3 with community and student samples and find high levels of reliability. In our analysis, we find high levels of internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha ranging from 0.76 to 0.80). All three measures were scaled to run from 0 to 1. In our sample, Machiavellianism had a mean of 0.48 with a standard deviation of 0.16. Narcissism had a mean of 0.42 with a standard deviation of 0.15 while Psychopathy had the lowest mean at 0.26 with a standard deviation of 0.16. The full SD3 scale can be found in Appendix 1.

Political Beliefs

In addition to the SD3, we measure our three political beliefs (political knowledge, political interest, and efficacy) with a range of questions. Political knowledge is measured with a five-question battery.⁶ The knowledge scale runs from 0 to 1, with a mean of 0.59 (approximately three correct answers) and a standard deviation of 0.34. Political interest is measured with a single-item, 11-point Likert-type scale ranging from no interest at all to a great deal of interest: How interested are you in politics, generally? Once scaled to run from 0 to 1, interest had a mean of 0.60 and a standard deviation of 0.29. Efficacy is measured with a five-item scale where respondents were asked to agree or disagree with five statements about their relationship to politics. These five statements were “Generally, those elected to Parliament in Ottawa soon lose touch with people like me”; “I don’t think that the federal government cares much what people like me think”; “Federal political parties are only interested in people’s votes, but not in their opinions”; “People like me don’t have any say about what the federal government does”; and “Sometimes, politics and government in Ottawa seem so complicated that a person like me can’t really understand what’s going on.” Scaled to run from 0 to 1, efficacy had a mean of 0.39 and a standard deviation of 0.22.

Political Behavior

Finally, our two primary outcome variables were voting, measured as whether or not the respondent voted in the 2015 Canadian general election, and a 14-item participation index. Respondents were asked how often, in the last 12 months, they had engaged in the 14 different political activities, with response options being never, once or twice, three to five times, or more than five times.⁷ The majority (82.5%) of our sample reported voting in the 2015 federal election. The mean of our participation scale, which ran from 0 to 1, was low, as expected, at 0.18 with a standard deviation of 0.17.

The Cronbach’s alpha for the full participation scale was 0.88, indicating a high level of reliability. However, we recognize that we could be tapping multiple forms of participation with these questions. Therefore, in addition to analyzing the full 14-item scale, we also ran a principal components factor analysis to determine the number of factors in the scale. After varimax rotation, we were left with three retained factors (see Appendix 1). The first factor (which consisted of the six items attended a political meeting, contacted a Member of Parliament or other elected official, taken part in a protest or demonstration, joined a political party, volunteered during an election, and engaged in civil disobedience) can broadly be termed active political participation. We term the second factor (consisting of signed a petition, encouraged others to take action on a political or social issue that is important to you, boycotted or bought products for environmental reasons, boycotted or bought products for political or ethical reasons, and persuaded others on a political or social issue) as active social participation. Finally, the third factor (donated money to a political or societal cause, donated money to charity, volunteered for a charitable cause) encompasses the remaining three items and is called charity and donations. The first participation factor had a mean of 0.07 (standard deviation = 0.13), the second factor had a mean of 0.24 (standard deviation = 0.25) and the third factor had a mean of 0.30 (standard deviation = 0.26).

Control Variables

In addition to our independent variables, we control for basic demographics in our models. In particular, we include controls for sex, age, education, and income. In addition to these socio-demographic variables, we include a control for left–right ideology (mean of 0.45, falling just to the left of the moderate position) as well as political party identification. The excluded partisan category is no party identification (15% of respondents), while the dummy categories are for the Liberals (39%), Conservatives (23%), New Democrats (14%), and other party identifications (8%).

Statistical Models

We utilize a two-part test, beginning by assessing the direct influence of the Dark Triad on our measures of political beliefs, controlling for the demographic and political variables discussed above. We do this using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. Following this, we test for the direct and indirect effect of the Dark Triad on political participation using mediation analysis under the Sobel–Goodman framework (Sobel, 1982, 1986). In addition, we estimate confidence intervals with bootstrapping techniques to assess the statistical significance of our direct and indirect effects, as recommended by Preacher and Hayes (2004, 2008).⁸ Data and replication materials are available from the corresponding author upon request.

Results

The Dark Triad and Political Beliefs

Looking first at the effect of the Dark Triad on political beliefs, we see that Machiavellianism exerts no effect on political beliefs in any of the three models. Therefore, consistent with our (lack) of theoretical expectations, we find no evidence that Machiavellianism is an important personality trait for understanding political beliefs, at least as it relates to knowledge, interest, and efficacy (Table 1).

Table 1.

Dark Triad and Political Beliefs.

	Political knowledge	Political interest	Efficacy
Machiavellianism	0.12	0.09	−0.14
Machiavellianism	(0.12)	(0.12)	(0.11)
Narcissism	−0.30*	0.32*	0.08
Narcissism	(0.10)	(0.09)	(0.09)
Psychopathy	−0.16	0.05	−0.10
Psychopathy	(0.14)	(0.11)	(0.10)
Sex (male)	0.09*	0.03	0.01
Sex (male)	(0.04)	(0.03)	(0.03)
Age	0.00	0.00*	−0.00
Age	(0.00)	(0.00)	(0.00)
Education	0.22*	0.04	0.04
Education	(0.05)	(0.05)	(0.04)
Income	0.17*	0.01	0.01
Income	(0.05)	(0.04)	(0.03)
Ideology	−0.10	−0.05	−0.10
Ideology	(0.08)	(0.07)	(0.07)
Party (Liberals)	0.06	0.21*	0.06^†
Party (Liberals)	(0.05)	(0.05)	(0.03)
Party (Conservatives)	0.14*	0.23*	−0.02
Party (Conservatives)	(0.06)	(0.05)	(0.04)
Party (New Democratic Party)	0.02	0.24*	−0.02
Party (New Democratic Party)	(0.06)	(0.05)	(0.04)
Party (Other)	0.07	0.19*	−0.01
Party (Other)	(0.07)	(0.07)	(0.05)
Political knowledge	−	0.23*	0.04
Political knowledge	−	(0.05)	(0.04)
Political interest	0.30*	−	0.04
Political interest	(0.07)	−	(0.06)
Efficacy	0.08	0.05	−
Efficacy	(0.08)	(0.08)	−
Constant	0.11	−0.12	0.45*
Constant	(0.10)	(0.10)	(0.08)
N	338	338	338
R²	0.318	0.309	0.104

Standard errors in parentheses.

†

p < 0.10, *p < 0.05.

A similar finding emerges when we turn to psychopathy, where we see no evidence that individuals high in Psychopathy exhibit higher levels of political interest compared to other individuals. This finding leads us to reject our first hypothesis, as a tendency toward interpersonal manipulation and viewing political leaders with similar traits does not seem to draw these individuals toward an interest in politics.

When we examine Narcissism, however, we see results in line with H3. Individuals with higher levels of Narcissism do, in fact, express higher levels of political interest, potentially driven by a feeling of importance or qualification for engagement with politics. Interestingly (and perhaps troubling from a normative standpoint), this self-confidence appears to be unfounded. While we had no theoretical reason to expect it, Narcissism is associated with lower levels of political knowledge. The issue for individuals high in Narcissism, it seems, is that they are simultaneously interested in politics and uninformed about the political world. Surprisingly, however, narcissism is not related to political efficacy. Despite the tendency toward arrogance and an enhanced self-image, these individuals do not have a greater sense of their ability to understand or influence politics.⁹

While the association of Narcissism with measures of political beliefs is potentially interesting on its own, we believe the more important questions rest on whether this trait directly or indirectly influences political participation, which in turn affects representation and elections. If the Dark Triad were influential for beliefs but not for actions, we might think of them as a not particularly problematic novelty. As we show in the following section, however, the Dark Triad also affects the actions that citizens take.

The Dark Triad and Political Participation

Table 2 presents the results from an OLS regression (for the entire 14-item participation index) and a logistic regression (for voting in the 2015 general election) with the Dark Triad personality traits and controls. The first model for each dependent variable presents the results without political beliefs, while the second model includes political beliefs. Looking first at participation, we see that, for Psychopathy, the null results in these models lead us to reject our second hypothesis, as there appears to be no direct effect of psychopathy on participation. As we saw before, however, Narcissism is a positive predictor of participation, regardless of whether political beliefs are included or not.

Table 2.

Dark Triad and Political Participation.

	Participation		Voted (2015)
Machiavellianism	−0.06	−0.08	−2.68*	−3.16*
Machiavellianism	(0.06)	(0.06)	(1.31)	(1.35)
Narcissism	0.32*	0.28*	1.65	0.81
Narcissism	(0.06)	(0.06)	(1.20)	(1.37)
Psychopathy	0.11	0.10	−0.41	−0.78
Psychopathy	(0.08)	(0.07)	(1.38)	(1.49)
Sex (male)	−0.03^†	−0.05*	0.52	0.40
Sex (male)	(0.02)	(0.02)	(0.38)	(0.40)
Age	−0.00	−0.00	0.02^†	0.01
Age	(0.00)	(0.00)	(0.01)	(0.01)
Education	0.06*	0.04	1.31*	1.08^†
Education	(0.03)	(0.03)	(0.60)	(0.64)
Income	0.04^†	0.03	1.50*	1.32*
Income	(0.02)	(0.02)	(0.51)	(0.54)
Ideology	−0.05	−0.03	0.85	1.20
Ideology	(0.05)	(0.05)	(0.85)	(0.94)
Party (Liberals)	0.05*	0.01	2.02*	1.44*
Party (Liberals)	(0.03)	(0.03)	(0.44)	(0.49)
Party (Conservatives)	0.03	−0.03	1.92*	1.22*
Party (Conservatives)	(0.03)	(0.03)	(0.52)	(0.56)
Party (New Democratic Party)	0.09*	0.04	2.09*	1.37*
Party (New Democratic Party)	(0.03)	(0.03)	(0.59)	(0.62)
Party (Other)	0.10*	0.05	1.51*	1.03
Party (Other)	(0.04)	(0.04)	(0.63)	(0.67)
Political knowledge		0.18*		2.98*
Political knowledge		(0.03)		(0.67)
Political interest		0.04		0.29
Political interest		(0.03)		(0.60)
Efficacy		−0.03		−0.33
Efficacy		(0.04)		(0.88)
Constant	−0.04	−0.01	−2.27*	−2.10^†
Constant	(0.06)	(0.05)	(0.98)	(1.11)
n	338	335	336	333
(Pseudo) R²	0.191	0.279	0.222	0.302

Standard errors in parentheses.

†

p < 0.10, *p < 0.05.

For Narcissism, we find support for our fifth hypothesis, with a direct effect of Narcissism on political participation. This result, more than any others, is troubling, as it suggests that individuals high in Narcissism are willing to participate in politics despite the correlation between their personality trait and lower levels of political knowledge. It is possible, however, that this total effect is attenuated by a negative indirect effect through political knowledge. We see some evidence for this, as the direct effect of Narcissism is slightly reduced with the addition of the political belief variables.

Interestingly, while we find effects for participation, we see no evidence that Narcissism is a significant predictor of having voted in the 2015 general election, either with or without the political belief variables. While we had no expectations for Machiavellianism, we do see that individuals who are high in Machiavellianism are less likely to vote, regardless of model specification. While these results are interesting, we have no theoretical reason to expect this pattern. In addition, none of the expected patterns hold for Psychopathy or Narcissism in relation to voting. Without a significant coefficient in either model (pre- or post-addition of political belief variables), we focus the rest of the analysis on the participation index.

To test for the presence of direct and indirect effects, the next step is to conduct separate Sobel–Goodman tests with bootstrapped confidence intervals to determine the scope of influence of the Dark Triad on participation. What we see is that, for Narcissism, the direct effect remains strong when looking at mediation through knowledge or interest. However, the effect of Narcissism is not mediated through knowledge, but rather only through interest, leading to partial mediation of the effect. Thus, any attenuation of the direct effect of Narcissism on participation is driven not through a lack of political knowledge, but rather through the mediation of the positive effect through political interest (Table 3).

Table 3.

Effects of Narcissism through Political Beliefs on Participation.

	Narcissism
	Interest	Knowledge
Indirect effect	0.06*	−0.01
Indirect effect	(0.02)	(0.01)
Direct effect	0.28*	0.28*
Direct effect	(0.06)	(0.06)
Total effect	0.34*	0.27*
Total effect	(0.06)	(0.06)

Standard errors in parentheses.

p < 0.05.

It is possible, of course, that we are missing an important relationship by grouping all participatory acts together. Therefore, Table 4 presents the indirect and direct effects from a series of Sobel–Goodman mediation tests for our three participation factors that emerged from the exploratory factor analysis.

Table 4.

Effects of Narcissism through Political Beliefs on Participation (Three Factors).

	Narcissism
	Interest	Knowledge
Factor 1: Active political participation
Indirect effect	0.04*	−0.00
Indirect effect	(0.01)	(0.01)
Direct effect	0.14*	0.14*
Direct effect	(0.04)	(0.05)
Total effect	0.18*	0.14*
Total effect	(0.05)	(0.05)
Factor 2: Active social participation
Indirect effect	0.09*	−0.02
Indirect effect	(0.03)	(0.02)
Direct effect	0.33*	0.33*
Direct effect	(0.10)	(0.10)
Total effect	0.42*	0.31*
Total effect	(0.10)	(0.09)
Factor 3: Charity and donations
Indirect effect	0.04^†	−0.02
Indirect effect	(0.02)	(0.02)
Direct effect	0.50*	0.50*
Direct effect	(0.09)	(0.09)
Total effect	0.53*	0.47*
Total effect	(0.09)	(0.09)

Standard errors in parentheses.

†

p < 0.10, *p < 0.05.

What we see in Table 4 is that, for Narcissism, the effect is similar across all three types of participation. While the effect is primarily direct, we see a significant indirect effect through interest for the first two factors and a marginally significant effect for the final factor. Once again, we see no evidence that the effect of Narcissism is mediated in any way through political knowledge.

As a final test of our hypotheses, we recognize one of the potential critiques of the mediation approach. Green, Bullock, and Ha (Bullock and Ha, 2011; Green et al., 2010) are especially critical of the use of mediation on nonexperimental data, especially if scholars rely on the Baron–Kenny method (Baron and Kenny, 1986). A key component of this critique is the inability to include or conceive of all potential mediators in the analysis. While we do not deny this possibility, we attempt to assuage concerns by conducting a multiple mediation test of the effect of the Dark Triad through the four measured political beliefs outlined earlier.

Utilizing a structural equation modeling approach and constructing non-linear combinations for the indirect and total effects, we present the results of the multiple mediation model in Table 5. Under the multiple mediation framework, we see that the primary effect, again, is a direct, positive effect of Narcissism on political participation. Consistent with prior results, the only significant mediator of Narcissism is political interest, which partially mediates the effect.

Table 5.

Multiple Mediation Test on Political Participation.

	Narcissism
Indirect effect (interest)	0.05*
Indirect effect (interest)	(0.02)
Indirect effect (knowledge)	−0.01
Indirect effect (knowledge)	(0.01)
Indirect effect (efficacy)	−0.00
Indirect effect (efficacy)	(0.00)
Direct effect	0.28*
Direct effect	(0.05)
Total effect	0.32*
Total effect	(0.06)

Standard errors in parentheses.

p < 0.05.

Discussion and Conclusion

Taken as a whole, these results suggest that an important connection exists between dark personality traits, especially the trait of Narcissism, and political participation. Narcissism, or a tendency toward self-centeredness, arrogance, entitlement, and a belief in one’s abilities, is directly correlated with participation in politics. Surprisingly, we find no connection between narcissism and political efficacy. In other words, the self-importance and grandiosity that characterizes narcissism does not appear to translate into higher ratings of one’s own ability to understand and influence politics. We do, however, find that Narcissism has a positive relationship with political interest and participation and a negative relationship with political knowledge, demonstrating that the confidence expressed by those high in Narcissism in the political realm is perhaps unfounded, at least as measured by traditional knowledge questions.

This conflicting relationship would not be terribly troubling if the effect of Narcissism on political participation was mediated through both variables. In that (hypothetical) case, higher levels of interest would produce more participation while lower levels of knowledge would produce less participation. This, however, is not the case. The effect of Narcissism on political participation is partially mediated by political beliefs, but only through political interest. This, combined with the direct, positive effect of Narcissism on participation, produces a large, positive total effect of Narcissism on political participation.

In addition, one potential salve for the influence of these traits could come through negative associations with political beliefs. Lower levels of political knowledge (Narcissism) is associated with Dark Triad traits, but this negative association does not mediate the effects of personality. Instead, when the effects are mediated, it is almost exclusively through positive associations with political interest.

We do note that, as footnote 8 and Appendix 1 show, including measures of other personality traits (viz. the HEXACO) reduces the effect size of the Dark Triad measures, however the significance of the Dark Triad generally remains. One area where we should exercise caution is in potentially overinterpreting the results related to political interest. When accounting for the HEXACO, none of the Dark Triad traits reach statistical significance. However, in this model, only Openness to Experience predicts interest, which suggests that some of this may come from multicollinearity between the HEXACO and the Dark Triad. Future research should work to further decompose the HEXACO, Big Five, and Dark Triad to understand the relationship with political interest. Unfortunately, this is beyond the scope of this study.¹⁰

To the extent that political representatives are most responsive to the individuals who turn out and, especially, those who participate in politics (as suggested by Fenno, 1978, constituency spheres), these results should raise some important concerns. Self-centered, egotistical, and unknowledgeable (Narcissistic) individuals are more likely to make up the volunteers and donors to political campaigns. If politicians listen to the volunteers and donors, we may be especially troubled by the characteristics of these groups. Admittedly, other personality traits also predict political participation, but we would be wrong to characterize the “participatory personality” are purely consisting of personality traits like the Big Five.

Our results are therefore in contrast to the more commonly presented participatory personality, which emphasizes the personality traits of Openness and Extraversion. These traits describe people with intellectual curiosity and an appreciation for art and emotion, and who are generally outgoing, assertive, and energetic. Our results, however, present a darker second participatory personality, painting a fairly bleak portrait of the Dark Triad’s association with participation. In general, individuals scoring higher in Narcissism are more likely to participate in politics. This effect, when it is mediated, is partially mediated through a positive relationship with interest and not mediated through the negative relationship with political knowledge. The results presented here add more evidence demonstrating that participation is driven not only by socio-economic variables but also by personality. In this case, the dark participatory personality is defined by grandiose beliefs, arrogance, and self-entitlement.

The next step for researchers, therefore, is to assess whether there are, in fact, negative externalities that result from an overrepresentation of narcissists among political activists. It is well-established that politicians are largely concerned with constituencies that help them win re-election (Fenno, 1978; Mayhew, 1974); what remains to be determined is if Narcissism produces differential policy preferences. One possible path forward is to rely on surveys of party activists and donors to assess levels of Narcissism and policy preferences compared to surveys of the general public—similar to the approach employed by Gilens and Page (2014) in their study of elites, interest groups, and average citizens. Scholars could also adopt an experimental approach using mock elections, such as with the Dynamic Process Tracing Environment (Lau and Redlawsk, 2006). By assessing Narcissism and blocking treatment assignment based on levels of the trait, researchers could approximate elections with more or less participation from narcissists. By tracing information search patterns and mock election outcomes, researchers could identify the informational and political effects of participation by narcissists.

As we continue to explore the influence of personality traits on political beliefs and behaviors, we would be wise to consider traits that hold negative connotations and associations such as the Dark Triad. While models like the Big Five/Five-Factor and HEXACO (Ashton et al., 2004) are useful general descriptions of personality, a set of traits like the Dark Triad are potentially more important for politics because of the asymmetry in desirable qualities across the range of these traits. That is, at high levels of Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy, individuals exhibit behaviors and beliefs that are troubling if translated into political action, a claim that is unlikely to hold for traits such as Extraversion or Openness to Experience.

Footnotes

Appendix 1

Table 12.

Multiple Mediation Test on Political Participation, Controlling for HEXACO.

	Narcissism
Indirect effect (interest)	0.01
Indirect effect (interest)	(0.02)
Indirect effect (knowledge)	−0.01
Indirect effect (knowledge)	(0.01)
Indirect effect (efficacy)	0.00
Indirect effect (efficacy)	(0.00)
Direct effect	0.19*
Direct effect	(0.08)
Total effect	0.20*
Total effect	(0.08)

Standard errors in parentheses.

p < 0.05.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Philip Chen

Notes

Author Biographies

Philip Chen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Beloit College. His research examines gender and racial stereotyping, personality, and political behavior, primarily through the lens of political psychology. His work has appeared in numerous political science and psychology journals.

Scott Pruysers is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Dalhousie University. Prior to this, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Ryerson University and an Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton University. His research interests include party organization, intra-party democracy, and political psychology. His research has appeared in journals such as Political Research Quarterly, Party Politics, Canadian Journal of Political Science, and Politics & Gender. He is the co-author of The Promise and Challenge of Party Primary Elections: A Comparative Perspective (McGill-Queens University Press, 2016) and the co-editor of The Personalization of Democratic Politics and the Challenge for Political Parties (ECPR Press, 2018).

Julie Blais is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at Carleton University. She is an emerging scholar with expertise in experimental methods, personality, scale development, and assessment. She has 20 peer-reviewed publications in high-caliber journals in the areas of forensic psychology, personality, and political psychology.

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