Literature Review of Associations between Political Ori

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Literature Review of Associations between Political Orientation and Dark Personality Traits

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Literature Review

The Dark Side of Politics: How Political Orientation is linked to Dark Personality Traits?

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The Dark Side of Politics: How Political Orientation is linked to Dark Personality Traits?

Even though a significant amount of research has been conducted on the link among the Big Five character variables and a variety of political actions and behaviours, an increasing number of empirical investigations are examining the possibility of links among the Dark Triad & political occurrences. There are many different personality variables that can be used to explain political orientation and voter behaviour. However, those personality variables that represent dark personalities appear to have a particularly significant influence on government extremism as well as the election of parties and politicians that are considered to be on the right or left of the political spectrum (Duspara & Greitemeyer, 2017). Narcissism is characterized by self-idealization, pretentious behaviour, and an intense need for praise from others. Machiavellianism is characterized by a lack of sympathy, deception, unethical views, and self-interest as well as by misanthropy, scepticism, and practicality. Psychopathy is a personality disorder that may be characterized by a lack of empathy, bravery, arrogance, and antisocial conduct in social situations. Previous studies (Jonason, 2015) on the connection between the shadowy aspects of a person's personality and their political leanings have been carried out in nations where political groups from centre of the electoral spectrum have a dominant position in the political system.

There is a growing amount of information that suggests there are strong correlations between political orientation and dark personality characteristics. The relationship between political orientation and dark personality traits is likely to vary from person to person. However, some research has suggested that people with dark personality traits may be more likely to hold right-wing political views. This is because people with dark personality traits tend to be more selfish, aggressive and power-hungry, which aligns with the values of right-wing politics (Blais & Pruysers, 2017).

One such link is that political orientation is associated with extremism. To be more specific, research reveals that those who lean more towards conservative views are more likely to have personality characteristics linked with the dark triad (i.e., narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy). According to some researchers (Bell et al., 2021; Rogoza et al., 2022) , persons whose ideas are more aligned with those of the right-wing were substantially more likely to score higher on tests of the characteristics associated with the Dark Triad.

Another research (Oluf & Furnham, 2015) comes to the intriguing conclusion that there were substantial connections between characteristics of the Dark Triad and certain political opinions, such as support for authoritarianism and racism. This shows that those who exhibit dark personality features are more likely to have right-wing ideas that might be destructive to society. The findings of this study are concerning because they suggest that people with dark personality traits are more likely to hold right-wing views, which could lead to negative outcomes for society.

This is especially true in light of the current political atmosphere, which is marked by the ascent of populism on the right. It is essential to emphasize that the results of this research should not be used to generalize about people who have right-wing political beliefs as being harmful or malicious. The overwhelming majority of individuals who hold beliefs associated with the right are neither psychopaths nor narcissists (Duspara & Greitemeyer, 2017). When attempting to get an understanding of the driving forces behind right-wing extremism, this is something that needs to be taken into account.

Machiavellianism was shown to be the single most critical factor in determining the political leanings of a person's dark side personality traits. In contrast, the only traits that were shown to be related with political extremism were narcissism and psychopathy. It is likely that the connection among narcissism and extremism is related to the narcissistic inclination to concentrate on one's own interests while neglecting the needs of others. This is one potential reason for the relationship between the two (Pavlović & Wertag, 2021).

In addition to being substantial indicators of political ambition, ambitious, combative, and dark personality qualities in one's social life are also important. Recent research (Rogoza et al., 2022) has shown evidence that Dark Triad is connected to political aspirations. This connection may be interpreted either as the urge to run for office or as the perception that one is competent to hold office. The mixture of high thresholds of Machiavellianism as well as engaging in social libertarianism was found to be associated with highest ranks of narcissism, while the mixture of high thresholds of Machiavellianism and engaging in social conservatism was found to be associated with top levels of narcissism. Even after taking into account the Big Five character variables and employing a degree of political philosophy that was made up of multiple components for each aspect of political viewpoint, these effects remained statistically significant. Furthermore, the Big Five character variables did not have an impact on the significance of the results. The implications include the possibility that our results may be used to the process of changing the interpersonal dynamics of politics (Chen et al., 2021). In addition, the results of the research indicate how important it is to investigate political ideology across different aspects in order to account for the diversity of political opinions. Both psychopathy and Machiavellianism were adversely correlated with higher levels of education and wealth. It would seem that persons who have higher socioeconomic level tend to have less of a dark personality, despite the fact that both of these factors are indications of a person's socioeconomic standing.

It is reasonable to assert that there is a persistent connection between the dark part of a person's psyche and the political leaning and radicalism that they express. In addition, it would seem that the connections between the shadow side of a person's psyche and a right-wing political leaning and radicalism, correspondingly, are largely separate from one another and do not influence one another. On the other hand, the correlations among dark personality as well as political extremism and orientation seem to have a rather little impact in terms of the extent of their influence (Duspara & Greitemeyer, 2017).

References

Bell, E., Kowalski, C. M., Vernon, P. A., & Schermer, J. A. (2021). Political hearts of darkness: The dark triad as predictors of political orientations and interest in politics. Behavioral Sciences, 11(12). https://doi.org/10.3390/bs11120169
Blais, J., & Pruysers, S. (2017). The power of the dark side: personality, the dark triad, and political ambition. Personality and Individual Differences, 113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.03.029
Chen, P., Pruysers, S., & Blais, J. (2021). The Dark Side of Politics: Participation and the Dark Triad. Political Studies, 69(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321720911566
Duspara, B., & Greitemeyer, T. (2017). The impact of dark tetrad traits on political orientation and extremism: an analysis in the course of a presidential election. Heliyon, 3(10). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2017.e00425
Jonason, P. K. (2015). How “dark” personality traits and perceptions come together to predict racism in Australia. Personality and Individual Differences, 72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.08.030
Oluf, G. A., & Furnham, A. (2015). The relationship between bright- and dark-side personality traits. Personality and Individual Differences, 87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.08.002
Pavlović, T., & Wertag, A. (2021). Proviolence as a mediator in the relationship between the dark personality traits and support for extremism. Personality and Individual Differences, 168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110374
Rogoza, M., Marchlewska, M., & Szczepańska, D. (2022). Why dark personalities participate in politics? Personality and Individual Differences, 186. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111319

Literature Review of Associations between Political Orientation and Dark Personality Traits

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