Inhaltszusammenfassung

A growing body of studies is focusing on politicians’ personalities, as the personality of political elites has been shown to affect their behavior. Whereas most research uses the big five framework or HEXACO, only a few studies have been able to capture more “aversive,” “dark”—yet non‐pathological—personality traits of politicians. However, these studies refer to top politicians; information on the distribution and the correlates of dark personality traits in the broad mass of politicians is...A growing body of studies is focusing on politicians’ personalities, as the personality of political elites has been shown to affect their behavior. Whereas most research uses the big five framework or HEXACO, only a few studies have been able to capture more “aversive,” “dark”—yet non‐pathological—personality traits of politicians. However, these studies refer to top politicians; information on the distribution and the correlates of dark personality traits in the broad mass of politicians is still lacking. Moreover, information on dark personality traits in politicians is usually based on expert ratings; data using self‐placement is missing. Based on data from six surveys with candidates running for German state elections in 2021 and 2022 (N[pooled data set] = 1,632), we, to the best of our knowledge, offer, for the first time, insights into politi‐ cians’ self‐reported socially aversive personality traits. “Dark” personality traits are measured by the political elites aver‐ sive personality scale (PEAPS). Results show that German politicians exhibit moderate levels of aversive personality traits. In addition, the extent of candidates’ dark personalities is strongly negatively correlated with honesty–humility, agreeable‐ ness vs. anger, and extraversion, while associations with other basic personality traits are much weaker or insignificant. We also find that younger, more right‐leaning, and more ideologically extreme candidates report higher levels of aver‐ sive personality.» weiterlesen» einklappen

Autoren

Klassifikation

DFG Fachgebiet:
Sozialwissenschaften

DDC Sachgruppe:
Politik