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Why Dark Personalities Participate in Politics?

Article in Personality and Individual Differences · October 2021

DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2021.111319

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RUNNING HEAD: WHY DARK PERSONALITIES PARTICIPATE IN POLITICS?

Why Dark Personalities Participate in Politics?

Marta Rogoza

Marta Marchlewska

Institute of Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences

Dagmara Szczepańska

Maria Grzegorzewska University, Poland

Author note

Correspondence regarding this article should be directed to Marta Rogoza, Institute of

Psychology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Jaracza 1, 00-001, Warsaw, Poland (email:

mrogoza@psych.pan.pl, telephone: +48225831380, fax: +48225831381).

Data availability statement:

The data that support the findings are available at the Open Science Framework:

https://osf.io/ru2x8

Acknowledgements:

This work was supported by the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education [grant

number DIALOG 0013/2019; financing period: 2019-2021] and Norface Democratic

Governance in a Turbulent Age Research Programme [project Threat, identity, and dissent:

Understanding and addressing political polarization in European democracies is financially

supported by the NORFACE Joint Research Programme on Democratic Governance in a

Turbulent Age and co-funded by National Science Centre, Poland and the European

Commission through Horizon 2020 under grant agreement No 822166; National Science

Centre, Poland project number 2019/01/Y/HS6/00033].

Rogoza, M., Marchlewska, M., & Szczepańska, D. (2021). Why Dark Personalities

Participate in Politics. Personality and Individual Differences. Accepted for publication.

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Abstract

Literature provides mixed results concerning how the Dark Triad traits are related to political

activities. Within the current paper, we aim to address some of the existing limitations and

attempt to solve these ambiguities. We examined the relations of the Dark Triad traits to

political participation as well as to normative (e.g., voting) and non-normative (e.g., blocking

streets) behaviors. In total, 558 young Polish adults aged between 18 and 25 years old took

part in the study twice across a period of eight months. Moreover, in a follow-up study we

examined 476 British adults aged between 18 and 75 attempting to replicate obtained results

on the one hand, and to presume about motivations underlying political participation on the

other. Results revealed that narcissism and psychopathy (but not Machiavellianism) are

consistently related to political participation. The current study contributes to the literature

through revealing trait-specific motivations explaining the relation between the Dark Triad

traits to political participation and political behavior.

Keywords: Dark Triad; political participation; political behaviors; political motivation

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1. Introduction

The treatise “Prince,” written by Niccolò Machiavelli in the 16th century, focuses on

different forms of effective and successful government. Though popular, Machiavelli’s theory

may seem cruel because it promotes political amorality as justified and highly recommended.

Yet are those interested in politics deliberately malevolent? Existing research seems to

support this claim, at least partially, as the Dark Triad traits (i.e., Machiavellianism, grandiose

narcissism, and psychopathy; Paulhus & Williams, 2002) are all related to power seeking,

social dominance and authoritativeness (Rogoza & Cieciuch, 2020). However, in more direct

comparisons, studies tend to provide mixed results. For instance, some suggest that narcissism

is negatively related to political knowledge (Chen et al., 2020) but positively related to

political interest (Chen et al., 2020; see also Blais & Pruyers, 2017) and objective indicators

of performance, such as winning the popular vote or initiating legislation (Watts et al., 2003).

Another example would be that political science students are characterized by higher levels of

Machiavellianism and psychopathy than social sciences students (Vedel & Thomsen, 2017).

However, neither Machiavellianism nor psychopathy were significantly related to political

knowledge or political interest (Chen et al., 2020). Overall, it is unclear if the Dark Triad

traits are related to political participation or not. Furthermore, it is also unclear what the

factors that might underlie the link between Dark Triad traits to political participation are.

These are the questions we attempt to address within the current paper.

1.1. The Dark Triad of Personality

While all Dark Triad traits share socially malevolent characteristics, such as

callousness, duplicity and self-aggrandisement (Jones & Figueredo, 2013; Marcus, Preszler,

and Zeigler-Hill, 2018; Paulhus, 2014), each trait also has its own unique content. Although

the construct of the Dark Triad is relatively new (Paulhus & Williams, 2002), each trait has

accumulated a substantial body of literature across the years. The concept of

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Machiavellianism was first described by Christie and Geis (1970). As already mentioned, it

was named after an Italian diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli, who, in a guide-like treatise,

described his approach to politics, which ultimately became known as an “ends justify the

means” orientation. Machiavellianism entails different features, however, the most

prototypical of this trait are strategical manipulativeness, lack of conventional morality and a

cynical worldview (Christie & Geis, 1970). The trait of narcissism origins from the Greek

mythological character of Narcissus and the term was first introduced by Ellis (1898), though

it was further disseminated by Raskin and Hall (1979). Modern definitions of narcissism

define it is as an entitled sense of self-importance (Krizan & Herlache, 2018). Narcissism

comprises two distinctive features of exaggerated self-views not matching the reality (i.e.,

grandiosity and superiority) as well as hostile attitudes towards any ego-threatening stimuli

(i.e., entitlement and exploitativeness; Ackerman et al., 2011; Back et al., 2013). The third

trait – psychopathy – is frequently perceived as the most malevolent of all three (Rauthmann,

2012). It was introduced by Cleckley as a clinical construct (1941) but later research indicated

its usefulness as a subclinical trait (Ray & Ray, 1982). The distinctive characteristics of

psychopathy are impulsiveness, recklessness and antisocial tendencies (Hare, 1985).

Summing up, while all the Dark Triad traits reflect antagonistic attitudes towards others

(Trahair et al., 2020), each trait provides some new content not captured by the others.

1.2. The Dark Triad and Political Bahavior

How might the Dark Triad traits be related to politics? It seems reasonable to start

answering this question from Machiavellianism, as it is literally a product of renaissance

political activity. Christie and Geis (1970) argued that an individual high in Machiavellianism

is essentially apolitical in an ideological sense, as in order to achieve political success one

needs to have flexible political tactics and be willing to make compromises. Individuals high

in Machiavellianism, due to their low ideological commitment, are expected to go with the
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prevailing political currents to achieve one of the possible ends. Paulhus (1983) argued that

the reason why those who are scoring high in Machiavellianism might not engage in the

sociopolitical sphere is their cynical worldview. Since they view others as selfish, they do not

believe that a single individual could change the world, hence they consider political

engagement a goal not worth pursuing (Paulhus, 1983). These early views on Machiavellian

personality tend to find their reflection in empirical results of modern research. While

Machiavellianism is positively associated with seeing oneself as possessing greater

qualifications for pursuing a political career, it is virtually unrelated to interest in politics

(Blais & Pruysers, 2017). Moreover, as those high in cynicism are more prone to prioritize

self-interests and are less concerned with the well-being of others (Leung & Bond, 2004),

they may not be willing to engage in actions focused on collective-level benefits (e.g.,

collective action). Furthermore, when assessed in regard to retrospective electoral voting,

Machiavellianism predicted it negatively (Chen et al., 2020). This highlights that for

Machiavellianism, presumably due to cynical worldview, political participation does not

really matter or may be perceived as a waste of time (Christie & Geiss, 1970; Paulhus, 1983).

Narcissism is all about the self, so why might it be related to political participation?

Individuals high in narcissism are not passive, they are extraverted, seek stimulation and love

to be right in the spotlight (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001; Rogoza, Cieciuch, Strus, & Baran,

2019). As those who score high in narcissism desperately crave for admiration, they keep

engaging in different behaviors that might help them to self-enhance. For instance, even if

they are not perceived as such by others, they may present themselves as extraordinarily

communal (e.g., in terms of prosociality; Nehrlich et al., 2019) just to maintain a grandiose

self-image. From this perspective, the question whether narcissism is related to political

participation seems to be more complicated, as by definition they should not care about

common goods. Therefore, their participation may be superficial and serve only self-
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enhancement purposes (Raskin & Hall, 1979). However, is political participation itself a good

opportunity to boost narcissistic egos? Probably yes. Empirical research seems to support this

unobvious link between narcissism and political participation. For instance, individuals high

in narcississm see themselves as having good qualifications for a political career. For

example, they declare that they would have higher chances to win an election if they actually

ran for office (Blais & Pruysers, 2017). Such perceptions clearly illustrate narcissistic

grandiose self-views regarding political behaviors. In fact, narcissism has been found to be

positively related to both political participation as well as a number of so-called “good

citizenship” behaviors (e.g., voting or paying taxes; Chen et al., 2020; Pruysers et al., 2019).

Simultaneously, however, narcissism was associated to lesser political knowledge, which may

highlight the superficial interest in politics, which is used only as an opportunity to self-

enhance.

The reason why individuals high in psychopathy might engage in political life seems

to be as ambiguous as for individuals high in narcissism. This is because those who score

higher on psychopathy do not comply with existing rules, abandon friends, pay little attention

to own reputation and often violate existing law (Hare, 1985; Hare & Neumann, 2008; Jones

& Paulhus, 2014; Rogoza & Cieciuch, 2020). Given that, why would one expect to find a

relation between psychopathy and political participation? Political behaviors can take

different forms. Some of them concern most of the citizens (e.g., normative behaviors, such as

voting or signing a petition). Others, however, are more radical, and thus less popular (e.g.,

non-normative behaviors such as attending illegal demonstrations, blocking the streets). One

of such politically oriented examples is the difference between patriotism versus nationalism,

where the former regards constructive attitudes towards one’s nation while the latter regards

uncritical idealization of the nation frequently leading to out-group negativity, prejudice and

aggressiveness (Shatz & Staub, 1997). In this vein, individuals high in psychopathy may
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potentially benefit from participation in political life by destabilizing an already unstable

situation to vent their own antisocial desires (Hare, 1985). Indeed, Besta et al. (2021)

provided empirical evidence that those who score higher in psychopathy also tend to

collaborate with other people in a group when group norms justify the violent means chosen

by them. According to Besta et al. (2021), such collective actions are a way to achieve

personal benefits as they allow for expressing a lack of restraint and disregard for others.

Psychopathy is generally unrelated to political participation, political knowledge or interest in

politics (Blais & Pruysers, 2017; Chen et al., 2020). It is, however, negatively associated to

paying taxes (Pruysers et al., 2019). Thus, the association of psychopathy to political

participation may be even somewhat contingent. In general, psychopathy does not seem to be

related to political participation as complying to existing rules is not in their very nature

(Rogoza & Cieciuch, 2020). However, certain political events might evoke psychopathic

behaviors against the society.

Existing empirical studies are burdened with some important limitations that impede

proper interpretation. First, the reported analyses usually exclude the variance shared between

the Dark Triad traits. What remains after controlling for this shared variance seems unclear

(Sleep et al., 2017). For example, the results reported in Pruysers et al. (2019) were based on

the OLS regression, where the Dark Triad traits, in addition to a list of other variables (i.e.,

political knowledge, political interest, political orientation), were entered simultaneously as

predictors of these so-called good citizenship behaviors. Second, political participation was

treated as a unitary construct (Chen et al., 2020), even though factor analysis revealed it

regarded several distinct dimensions related to formal participation (e.g., attending political

meetings), active participation (e.g., boycotting) and charity (e.g., donating to charity causes).

Disentangling these could probably shed more light on the links between the Dark Triad traits

and political behaviors. Third, behavioral indicators of political action were not the primary
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focus (Chen et al., 2020). Examining more nuanced types of behaviors seems to be a

promising approach, especially in the context of the Dark Triad, as these political behaviors

can be either normative or non-normative. Finally, neither of the studies attempted to explain

why the observed relations are the way they are. Thus, within the current study, we aim to

resolve these ambiguities through complex assessments of political participation, as well as to

supplement them through the assessment of indicators of political behavior and evaluation of

underlying motivation to engage in politics.

2. Current Research

The goal of the current research is to assess how the Dark Triad traits are related to

different forms of political behavior and to assess what might drive dark personalities to

political participation. For this purpose, we examined general aspects of political participation

(i.e., civic participation, formal participation, activism, and corporate social responsibility) as

well as more specific normative (i.e., signing a petition, boycotting, attending a legal

demonstration, attending a legal assembly) and non-normative indicators of political behavior

(i.e., attending an illegal demonstration, blocking the streets, destructing property, attending

an illegal assembly).

Although there are some inconsistent empirical findings within the existing literature,

we hypothesize that Machiavellianism, due to its cynical nature (Paulhus, 1983), is expected

to be unrelated to any sort of political participation (H1a). In turn, narcissism (H1b) should be

positively related to political participation. Psychopathy (H1c) is expected to be most strongly

related to non-normative political behaviors due its phenotypical characteristics (Hare, 1985).

We expect that the identified effects should be relatively stable over time, that is, while some

changes are possible to happen, they should be all minor in nature (H2).

Further, we hypothesize that there might be some trait-specific motivations underlying

these expected relations. As for Machiavellianism (H3a), we hypothesize it would be

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positively related to political cynicism (i.e., a preconception that individual actions do not

change anything, and thus are not worthy to pursue; Christie & Geis, 1970; Paulhus, 1983).

Narcissism (H3b) should be related to ego-boosting participatory tendencies (i.e., a

motivation to engage in politics only to feel more magnanimous; Nehrlich et al., 2019; Raskin

& Hall, 1979). Finally, psychopathy (H3c) is expected to be related to causing chaos (i.e., a

belief that individuals engage in politics to wreak havoc; Besta et al., 2021). Furthermore, we

expect that these trait-specific motivations should reflect the actual motivations explaining

why dark personalities engage in politics in the first place. That is, we expect that accounting

for the shared variance between a specific Dark Triad trait and its associated motivation to

engage in politics would change the observed relations to political participation. In other

words, we hypothesize that residualized Machiavellianism should be positively related to

political participation, while residualised narcissism and psychopathy are expected to be

unrelated to it (H4). All data necessary for the reproduction of these results can be found at

the OSF: https://osf.io/ru2x8/

3. Method

3.1. Participants and Procedure

In the current paper, we have gathered data from two independent samples originating

from two different cultural contexts: Polish (Study 1) and British (Study 2). Polish

participants were administered the set of measures in Polish, while British participants

received English language equivalents. Polish data (Study 1) was collected in two waves, with

an eight-month interval, by an external research company – Ariadna – a Polish online research

platform previously used in other academic studies (e.g., Marchlewska et al., 2019). In sum,

we recruited 558 young Polish adults aged from 18 to 25 years old (272 women, 286 men,

Mage = 22.57, SD = 2.06). Data from the British sample (Study 2) were gathered via Prolific

Academic. We gathered responses from 476 British adults aged from 18 to 75 years old (339
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RUNNING HEAD: WHY DARK PERSONALITIES PARTICIPATE IN POLITICS?

women, 134 men, Mage = 34.20, SD = 12.30). Power considerations calculated in the G*Power

indicated that at least 395 participants should be recruited in the final sample to achieve a

power of .80 for detecting even small (i.e., r = .14; Cohen, 1988) associations between

variables at the alpha level of .05.

3.2. Measures

3.2.1. Short Dark Triad

To assess Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy, we administered the Short

Dark Triad scale in both studies (SD3; Jones & Paulhus, 2014; Polish adaptation: Rogoza &

Cieciuch, 2019). In this measure, respondents rated their agreement with each of the 27

statements (nine per trait), using a five-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly

disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

3.2.2. Participatory Behaviors Scale and Corporate Social Responsibility

We used the Participatory Behaviors Scale (Talò & Mannarini, 2014) that comprises

12 items measuring three types of political behavior: civic participation, formal political

participation, and activism. The scale was translated into Polish by members of the Political

Cognition Lab, Polish Academy of Sciences. In addition to that, we also used the six-item

Corporate Social Responsibility scale (CSR), which is considered a type of political

participation regarding the degree of involvement in activities related to pro-ecological

actions, buying products for ethical reasons or donating money to charity (Furman et al.,

2020). The respondents assessed to what extent they recognized these behaviors as

representative of them, using a five-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (definitely unusual

for me) to 5 (definitely typical of me). These measurement tools were used both in Study 1 and

Study 2.

3.2.3. Indicators of Political Behaviors – Normative and Non-Normative Collective Action

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We used eight items measuring behaviors related to normative and non-normative

indicators of collective action, four for each type of activity. Respondents were asked to

declare how often they performed specific behaviors on a four-point Likert-type scale ranging

from 1 (Would never do it) to 4 (Do it on a regular basis). These measurement tools were

used both in Study 1 and Study 2.

3.2.3. Motivations to Engage in Politics

To assess different motivations driving individuals to engage in politics (Study 2), we

used a tool we designed specifically for this study; it comprised nine items forming three

subscales: political cynicism (sample item: No matter if I vote or not, my vote doesn’t matter

anyway), ego-boosting (sample item: I engage in politics because I’m changing the world for

the better), and causing chaos (sample item: I engage in politics because this way I can

spread confusion in my country). For all items, participants answered using five-point Likert-

type scale. For political cynicism participants rated their agreement using a scale from 1

(strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) and for ego-boosting and causing chaos participants

rated their similarity using a scale ranging from 1 (not at all like me) to 5 (very much like me).

All items measured why the respondents did not, or did, engage in political activities.

4. Results

4.1. Relations of the Dark Triad Traits to Political Participation and Indicators of Political

Behavior

Descriptive statistics and estimates of internal consistencies are presented in Table 1.

Full correlation matrices of all variables studied are available as supplementary materials in

the OSF. Within Table 2, we present the relations of the Dark Triad traits to political

participation and different political behaviors across time for the Polish sample (Study 1),

while analogous results for the British sample are provided in Table 4 (Study 2). In the Polish

sample we found significant relations of not only narcissism, but of all Dark Triad traits to
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RUNNING HEAD: WHY DARK PERSONALITIES PARTICIPATE IN POLITICS?

political participation. Narcissism, as well as psychopathy, were both related to a mediocre

extent, while the observed relations with Machiavellianism were rather numerically small. We

found a similar pattern of relations in the British sample, however, the relation of psychopathy

and narcissism to different forms of political participation was remarkably smaller than in the

Polish sample. Machiavellianism, in turn, appeared to be unrelated to any sort of political

participation. In respect to the indicators of political behavior, in the Polish samples

psychopathy was most strongly and positively related to most of them, regardless of whether

they were normative or non-normative (albeit the strength of the relation to the latter was

stronger). Machiavellianism and narcissism were also positively linked to the indicators of

political behaviors, albeit the latter was related more strongly. These results were generally

stable over the eight-month period. In the British sample, we noted some deviations from this

pattern. More precisely, psychopathy was found to be unrelated to normative, but positively

associated with non-normative political behaviors. Narcissism, in contrast, was positively

related to normative behaviors, but also to some “milder” non-normative political behaviors,

such as attending illegal demonstrations and gatherings. Finally, Machiavellianism was found

to be unrelated to any sort of indicators of political behavior. Summarizing, our expectations

were confirmed, though not entirely. We elaborate on this issue in the discussion section.

4.2. Motivations Underlying the link Between Dark Triad Traits and Political Participation

The relations of the Dark Triad traits to different motivations that might underlie

political participation is presented in Table 3. Consistent with our expectations, we found that

each Dark Triad trait was significantly related to its hypothesized motivation. That is,

Machiavellianism was related to political cynicism, narcissism was related to using politics to

self-enhance (i.e., ego-boosting motivation) and psychopathy was related to engagement in

politics to cause chaos. Although there were no differences in how Machiavellianism and

psychopathy were related to political cynicism (Z = 0.46; p = .321), when controlling for their
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shared variance in a linear regression model Machiavellianism appeared as a significant

predictor of political cynicism (β = .11; p = .048) and psychopathy did not (β = .07; p = 190).

While psychopathy was related to ego-boosting in a similar extent as narcissism, the latter

was related significantly more strongly to it (Z = 1.78; p = .038). When both were entered into

a linear regression model, only narcissism remained as a significant predictor of ego-boosting

(β = .25; p < .001), while the relationship between psychopathy and ego-boosting turned out

to be non-significant (β = .09; p = .076). Finally, psychopathy was more strongly related to

using politics to cause chaos than narcissism (Z = 3.77; p < .001) and Machiavellianism (Z =

4.04; p < .001). When all were entered into a linear regression model, psychopathy remained

the strongest predictor of the motivation to cause chaos (β = .38; p < .001) and

Machiavellianism turned out insignificant (β = .06; p = .246). Narcissism, interestingly,

although somewhat on the boundary, remained a significant predictor (β = .09; p = .048) of

the motivation to cause chaos. Summing up, the potential sources of motivations underlying

political participation remained somewhat specific for each Dark Triad trait, supporting our

hypothesis.

In Table 4 we present how the Dark Triad traits are related to political participation

and indicators of normative and non-normative political behaviors. We present two sorts of

correlational coefficients, that is, zero-order relations and partial correlations where we

controlled for the trait-specific motivations (i.e., Machiavellianism was controlled for political

cynicism, narcissism for ego-boosting and psychopathy for causing chaos). Controlling for

political cynicism did not change the relation of Machiavellianism to political participation in

the extent that it would be significant. Still, we observed a tendency that the overall strength

of this relation increased. As for indicators of political behaviors, Machiavellianism appeared

to be positively related to joining boycotts and attending legal demonstrations. The increase in

strength of the relation to normative political behaviors (M = .06) increased more than for
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non-normative behaviors (M = .01), on average. Narcissism, on zero-order level, was found to

be positively related to political participation. However, when we partialled out the variance

of engaging in politics to self-enhance, narcissism was no longer related to participation in

politics. Similarly, narcissism was no longer related to normative political behaviors, but still

was related to non-normative behaviors such as attending illegal gatherings. Interestingly, the

strength of the relation of narcissism to blocking the streets increased once we controlled for

the shared variance of the ego-boosting motivation. Psychopathy revealed a similar pattern of

relations as narcissism. That is, when we controlled for the motivation to cause havoc,

psychopathy was no longer related to political participation nor to normative political

behaviors. Still, it remained significantly related to non-normative political behaviors such as

attending illegal gatherings. Interestingly, the relation to destroying property increased to a

significant level. Thus, summing up, these results support our expectations regarding the

motivations which may underlie the link between Dark Triad traits and political participation.

We elaborate on these results in the discussion section.

5. Discussion

The current study attempted to assess how and why the Dark Triad traits might be

related to political participation. It is worth noting that the results of the current work

overcame several methodological limitations of the previous studies, which yielded somewhat

mixed results (Blais & Pruysers, 2017; Chen et al., 2020; Pruysers et al., 2019). For instance,

entering all the Dark Triad traits within a single regression model (Pruysers et al., 2019)

produces results which are challenging to interpret (Sleep et al., 2017). Treating political

participation as a unitary construct, even though its multidimensional character might produce

artificial results (Chen et al., 2020). Studying solely normative political behaviors (i.e., good

citizenship; Pruysers et al., 2019) and omitting non-normative political behaviors may lead

only to a partial understanding of the link between the Dark Triad traits and political
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participation. Finally, neither of the studies examined why individuals high on the Dark Triad

traits might want (or not) to engage in politics in the first place. Current work attempted to

address all these limitations.

5.1. The Dark Triad Traits and Political Participation

Across three studies, we provided mixed support for our hypotheses. That is, we first

expected that Machiavellianism should be unrelated to political participation (Christie & Geis,

1970; Paulhus, 1983), narcissism to be related positively (Chen et al., 2020; Rogoza et al.,

2019), and psychopathy, given its phenotypical character, to be related primarily to non-

normative political behaviors (Hare, 1985). Such pattern of relations was mostly confirmed in

the British (Study 2) but not in the Polish sample (Study 1). In Study 1, we managed to

confirm the hypothesis about the positive link between narcissism and political participation.

However, we also found psychopathy to be most strongly related to multiple forms of political

participation (except for corporate social responsibility and signing a petition, which were

unrelated to psychopathy) and not only non-normative collective action. In Study 1, contrary

to our assumptions, we also found some weak and positive relations between

Machiavellianism and political participation. All these results were relatively stable across the

period of eight months. Thus, it appears that a cultural factor could play an important role

here.

In fact, the Polish part of the research (Study 1) was conducted during strong social

tensions and important political events in the country, additionally fuelled by the Covid-19

pandemic. At that time (December 2019 – July 2020), there were the postponed presidential

elections, an ongoing debate on women’s rights, and numerous protests, etc. The social and

the political mood was turbulent and created numerous opportunities to engage in broadly

understood politics. In contrast, the British part of our research project (Study 2) was

conducted in a period of no turbulent events in the political arena (July 2021). In this case, we
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managed to confirm our assumptions regarding a positive relationship between narcissism and

political participation as well as positive relationships between psychopathy and mainly non-

normative forms of collective action (e.g., blocking the streets, attending illegal demonstration

or illegal gatherings). Also, in line with our assumptions, Machiavellianism was unrelated to

political participation in Study 2.

In the light of the political events in Poland and a lack of such in Britain, our results

corroborate to the findings of Besta et al. (2021), suggesting that during times of

radicalisation and polarisation of a society, dark traits are flourishing. This finding, however,

should be interpreted with a pinch of salt. Attending demonstrations might have many

different consequences across the world and what is found in European data may not

necessarily reproduce itself in other cultures. For instance, while the demonstrations in Poland

are usually seen as something radical, and those which took place during the study were

mostly illegal (as they occurred during the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic), these could

not be compared to demonstrations in for instance Mexico (where demonstrations are

somewhat more regular and expected) or Hong Kong (where attending demonstration is

associated with risking one’s life). Thus, future studies might attempt to address whether these

findings would still be valid in different cultural contexts.

5.2. What Motivates Dark Personalities in Politics?

Within the current research, we hypothesized that there might be some trait-specific

motivations that could explain why dark personalities participate (or not) in politics.

According to the seminal literature on Machiavellianism (Christie & Geis, 1970; Paulhus,

1983), which described an individual high in Machiavellianism as someone who is essentially

apolitical, we hypothesized that it is their cynicism that constraints them from participating in

political life. Our results confirmed that Machiavellianism was related to political cynicism

and this relation remained significant even when controlling for its shared variance with
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RUNNING HEAD: WHY DARK PERSONALITIES PARTICIPATE IN POLITICS?

psychopathy. Importantly, after controlling for the shared variance between political cynicism

and Machiavellianism in Study 2, the relationships between Machiavellianism and some

forms of political engagement became significant and positive. Specifically, we observed

significant links between Machiavellianism and joining boycotts or attending legal gatherings.

These results can be seen as preliminary evidence confirming that individuals high in

Machiavellianism would choose not to engage in politics because they do not believe it would

bring them any real value. Although these results are promising, given the extent of these

changes, future studies are needed to better understand why those who score higher in

Machiavellianism are less willing to participate in politics. For instance, one might seek

whether the relation between Machiavellianism and political participation is in fact moderated

by the cynical worldviews. It might be that individuals high in Machiavellianism might

suddenly become politically involved if they would see an opportunity for selfish gain or a

real chance to help themselves.

Within the current study, we hypothesized and found that individuals high in

narcissism might participate in politics because they perceive it as an opportunity to boost

their egos. Previous research on grandiose narcissism revealed that to boost their self-esteem,

those who are scoring high in narcissism can describe themselves in terms which are not

typically associated with narcissism, such as being prosocial (Gebauer et al., 2012). Even if

they describe themselves as such, in the eyes of others they are not (Nehrlich et al., 2018). It

seems that a similar psychological mechanism could explain why narcissism is related to

political participation. Even if narcissism is negatively related to political knowledge, it is

positively related to participation in politics (Chen et al., 2020). Study 2 showed that

individuals high in narcissism use political engagement to boost their egos, gain attention and

admiration from others to self-aggrandize. Importantly, our results revealed that ego-boosting

was related to narcissism, even if we controlled for its shared variance with psychopathy.
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RUNNING HEAD: WHY DARK PERSONALITIES PARTICIPATE IN POLITICS?

Most interesting results, however, stem from controlling the ego-boosting shared variance

when assessing the relation between narcissism and political participation. It appeared that

narcissism was neither related to any form of political participation nor to normative political

behaviors. Simultaneously, it was positively related to non-normative actions, such as

attending illegal demonstrations. These results supported our expectations, stating that

individuals high in narcissism engage in politics to self-enhance. Positive relation to non-

normative political behaviors might be explained in terms of the dual nature of narcissism. If

it is not possible to self-enhance, then those scoring high in narcissism go on defending

themselves (Back, 2018). Future studies might further assess the effects of the facets of

narcissism on political participation.

Finally, we expected that individuals high in psychopathy might participate in politics

because radical collective actions might allow them to explicitly express their antisocial

attitudes (Besta et al., 2021). This becomes visible even prior to the assessment of the

underlying motivation, as the relation of psychopathy to political participation was much

stronger in a radicalized and polarized Polish society than it was in a more stable British

society. More direct comparisons provided further evidence for such interpretation. In line

with our expectations, psychopathy was most strongly related to the motivation of wreaking

havoc, even when we controlled both narcissism and Machiavellianism. When we controlled

the shared variance of causing chaos and psychopathy to explain the link of the latter to

political participation, it appeared that psychopathy was no longer related to neither form of

political participation, as well as to neither normative political behavior. It remained,

however, significantly related to non-normative behaviors, such as destroying property. Such

finding is consistent with the existing literature, suggesting psychopathy to be the darkest of

the Dark Triad traits (Rauthmann, 2012). Thus, our findings not only corroborate to Besta et

al. (2021) results suggesting that individuals high in psychopathy are more willing to engage
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RUNNING HEAD: WHY DARK PERSONALITIES PARTICIPATE IN POLITICS?

in collective actions, but also provide empirical confirmation of that they do so to express

their antisocial worldview.

5.3. Conclusion

Summing up, current results are the first to provide evidence explaining why dark

personalities might engage in political participation. We found some limited extent on why

individuals high in Machiavellianism are less prone to be involved in collective actions, and we

found a considerable amount of evidence explaining why narcissists and psychopaths might

participate in politics. It appears that for individuals high in narcissism, politics is just another

opportunity to boost their egos, while individuals high in psychopathy use the occasion to carry

out their own non-normative desires. Current research provides evidence that each of the Dark

Triad traits has a completely different relation with political participation.

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RUNNING HEAD: WHY DARK PERSONALITIES PARTICIPATE IN POLITICS?

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Table 1

Descriptive Statistics and Estimates of Internal Consistencies Across Studied Samples (Study

1 and Study 2)

Poland time 1 Poland time 2 The U. K.

M SD α M SD α M SD α

Machiavellianism 2.98 0.72 .81 2.94 0.72 .81 2.71 0.67 .79

Narcissism 2.71 0.61 .65 2.66 0.62 .72 2.18 0.59 .73

Psychopathy 2.34 0.75 .82 2.30 0.74 .83 1.83 0.58 .72

Civil Participation 2.44 0.94 .79 2.46 0.93 .80 2.28 0.82 .64

Formal Participation 2.01 1.09 .94 1.96 1.05 .94 1.39 0.63 .79

Activism 2.59 0.97 .82 2.53 1.01 .85 2.44 0.86 .70

Corporate Social Responsibility 3.14 0.93 .89 3.03 0.90 .88 3.20 0.83 .80

Political cynicism 2.21 0.95 .77

Ego-boosting 1.03 0.84 .65

Causing chaos 1.29 0.49 .69

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Table 2

Relations Between Dark Triad Traits to Political Participation and Indicators of Political

Behaviors Across Eight Months in Polish Samples (Study 1)

Machiavellianism Narcissism Psychopathy

Political participation Time 1 Time 2 Time 1 Time 2 Time 1 Time 2

Civil Participation .20* .20* .37* .45* .45* .44*

Formal Participation .15* .13 .35* .38* .54* .52*

Activism .21* .24* .34* .41* .37* .37*

Corporate Social Responsibility .15* .23* .22* .31* .04 .10

Indicators of Political Behavior

Normative action

Singing a petition .17* .22* .15 .23* .04 .12

Joining in boycotts .18* .14 .25* .30* .26* .26*

Attending legal demonstration .20* .24* .27* .39* .37* .40*

Attending legal gatherings .25* .24* .32* .36* .37* .36*

Non-normative actions

Blocking the streets .16* .20* .28* .31* .54* .58*

Destroying property .15* .14 .24* .30* .54* .56*

Attending illegal demonstration .18* .24* .29* .36* .54* .59*

Attending illegal gatherings .18* .24* .28* .34* .51* .57*

Note. Bonferroni correction applied. Marked as significant with * when p < .003.
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Table 3

Relations of the Dark Triad Traits to Motivations to Engage in Politics (Study 2)

Machiavellianism Narcissism Psychopathy

Political cynicism .15* -.03 .13*

Ego-boosting .16* .29* .21*

Causing chaos .29* .29* .45*

Note. Bonferroni correction applied. Marked as significant with * when p < .008.
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Table 4

Zero-Order and Partial Relations Between Dark Triad Traits to Political Participation and

Political Behaviors (Study 2)

Machiavellianism Narcissism Psychopathy

Controlled for: Political Ego- Causing

cynicism boosting chaos
Political

participation

Civil Participation .00 .06 .21* .08 .10 .07

Formal Participation .06 .10 .21* .12 .18* .11

Activism .06 .13 .20* .05 .15* .09

Corporate Social -.08 -.02 .08 -.03 -.08 -.06

Responsibility

Indicators of Political Behavior

Normative action

Singing a petition -.04 .02 -.01 -.09 -.06 -.03

Joining in boycotts .10 .16* .16* .04 .16* .13

Attending legal .06 .12 .14* .01 .13 .08

demonstration

Attending legal .10 .14* .20* .10 .12 .09

gatherings

Non-normative actions

Blocking the streets .02 .04 .12 .21* .15* .10

Destroying property .01 .01 .07 .03 .07 .15*

Attending illegal .04 .06 .13* .05 .13* .12

demonstration

Attending illegal .07 .08 .24* .14* .19* .19*

gatherings

Note. Bonferroni correction applied. Marked as significant with * when p < .003.

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