Electoral Studies 72 (2021) 102357 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Electoral Studies journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/electstud An unjustified bad reputation? The Dark Triad and support for populism Carol Galais *, Guillem Rico Dept. Ciència Política i Dret Públic, Edifici B, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 08193, Bellaterra, Spain A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T Keywords: While research concludes that populist leaders stand out for their “dark” personalities, studies on the psycho­ Populism logical underpinnings of citizens’ populist attitudes are scant and inconclusive, with some agreement on the Populist attitudes association between disagreeableness and populist attitudes. By bringing the Dark Triad personality traits of Personality narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism into the picture, we aim to answer whether populist citizens -like Dark Triad populist leaders-score higher in this dark traits, and whether the addition of the Dark Triad helps to better understanding the populist personality. Using an online Spanish sample, our analyses find that using the Dark Triad does indeed add to our understanding of populist attitudes. In opposition to widespread intuitions about the character of populists, we find that psychopathy and Machiavellianism are negatively associated with support for populism, with only narcissism being positively related to the people-centric dimension of populist attitudes. 1. Introduction further psychological elements to complete the portrait of populist cit­ izens, since the Big Five personality traits do not fully capture darker, In March 2017, Pope Frances warned in an interview with a German less socially desirable nuances. The Dark Triad model offers three per­ newspaper that “populism is evil and never ends well”. Although his sonality traits associated with transgressive behaviour: Machiavel­ statement might only be of interest to Catholics, the truth is that value lianism, narcissism, and psychopathy (Paulhus and Williams, 2002).1 judgements regarding populism are the subject of a lively academic Machiavellian individuals are cynical, manipulative and lack morals. debate. For a number of scholars, populism is a parasite that thrives in Typical narcissists are exhibitionists who are arrogant, exploitative and times of crisis by draining the lifeblood of liberal democracy (Urbinati entitled, with oversized egos; at the same time, their self-esteem is 2014). Populism is suspected to erode social consensus and the legiti­ vulnerable and they are highly sensitive to criticism. Finally, macy of political institutions, endangering minority rights while up­ non-pathological psychopathy features low levels of empathy, consci­ holding civic, political and economic rights (Rovira Kaltwasser, 2012; entiousness and anxiety, along with high levels of impulsivity and Dzur and Hendriks 2018; Tamas 2017). Populist leaders, on the other thrill-seeking behaviour (Furnham et al., 2013). Our research addresses hand, are usually seen as authoritarian strongmen who, at best, behave whether or not, with all else being equal, citizens who display these less and speak like “drunken dinner guests” (Nai and Martínez i Coma, than flattering personality traits are also more likely to hold populist 2019). But what about populist citizens? Do they also have a “dark” attitudes. side? To this end, we test the relationship between populist attitudes and The relative success of populist parties has spurred academic interest the Dark Triad traits on an online sample of Spaniards (N = 3031). In in what causes populist attitudes. A thriving research strand explores the stark contrast to widely accepted depictions of populist citizens, our psychological basis of populism, particularly in regard to personality results indicate that psychopathy and Machiavellianism are negatively traits, although the existing evidence yields counter-intuitive and associated with the two core dimensions of populism (people-centrism inconsistent results (Fatke, 2019). Among the few established findings in and anti-elitism), while narcissism is positively related to people- this literature, one item stands out: populist citizens tend to be centrism. disagreeable; that is, they are not altruistic or cooperative, but distrustful and intolerant (Bakker et al., 2020; but see Pruysers, 2021). In parallel, a growing body of research is currently seeking out * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: carolina.galais@uab.cat (C. Galais), guillem.rico@uab.cat (G. Rico). 1 The latter two at subclinical levels. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2021.102357 Received 4 December 2020; Received in revised form 11 May 2021; Accepted 18 May 2021 Available online 27 May 2021 0261-3794/© 2021 Published by Elsevier Ltd. C. Galais and G. Rico Electoral Studies 72 (2021) 102357 2. Theoretical background: dark traits and populist attitudes happen to be associated in a given context, but that are not inherently part of populism itself. Populist discourse is chameleonic, in that it may From an “ideational” perspective, populism is a set of ideas that be combined with right-wing as well as left-wing “host” ideologies, convey a view of politics as “a Manichean struggle between the will of giving rise to more exclusionary or more inclusionary manifestations of the common people and an evil, conspiring elite” (Hawkins and Rovira populism (Mudde, 2004; Mudde and Rovira Kaltwasser, 2013; Taggart, Kaltwasser, 2019, p. 2). Even in its most basic conceptualizations, 2000). For example, European radical right-wing parties are populist but populism is a multidimensional concept. Its two most agreed-upon they are also authoritarian and, foremost, nativist (Mudde, 2007; components are anti-elitism and people-centrism. While anti-elitism Rydgren, 2007). implies a rejection of the elites holding power based on the belief that When trying to explain support for the phenomenon of populism, we they are selfish, corrupt and deceitful, people-centrism conceives “the run the risk of actually explaining support for populist parties’ host people” as a virtuous and homogeneous community, and asserts that ideologies instead (Rooduijn, 2019). For example, extant research sug­ popular sovereignty should guide political decisions (Castanho Silva gests that all the Dark Triad traits are positively associated with out­ et al., 2019). group threat perceptions and prejudice against immigrants (Hodson A relatively new avenue of research explores the psychological un­ et al., 2009), which are distinctive features of contemporary far right derpinnings of populism, yielding disturbing results that appear to shed movements. This risk is particularly acute when the outcome variable is light on the frightening consequences that populism might have on de­ behavioural in nature (i.e. voting for a populist party), which is most mocracy. For instance, support for human values -in particular, often the case in this research strand. One way to try to mitigate for this benevolence-has been found to be weaker among voters of right-wing is to focus on populist attitudes themselves, rather than on partisan populist parties, even after controlling for self-placement in the left- preferences. Yet studies that examine personality differences in the right scale (Marcos-Marne, 2019). In the same vein, populist attitudes endorsement of populist attitudes have actually yielded disparate re­ are positively related to self-oriented justice (Rothmund et al., 2020) sults. If we focus on the role of agreeableness, Landwehr and Steiner and collective narcissism, i.e., an unrealistic belief in the greatness of the (2017) find that individuals who score low on this trait are more likely to national group (Marchlewska et al., 2018). support the related construct of populist majoritarianism in Germany. Although research on the association between populism and per­ Yet, the relationship between agreeableness and populist attitudes was sonality is still scant and mixed results abound (Fatke, 2019), some not found in the US (Hibbing et al., 2009), France (Vasilopoulos and findings suggest that populist ideas might be particularly appealing to Jost, 2020), or in Canada (Pruysers, 2021), while Fatke (2019) actually dark personalities, i.e. individuals that score high on the three afore­ found a positive association in Germany and the UK (populist in­ mentioned dark personality traits. First, recent research indicates that, dividuals scoring higher in agreeableness than non-populists).3 compared to mainstream politicians, populist politicians score higher on An additional difficulty arises when the elements that make up the perceived narcissism, Machiavellianism, and (subclinical) psychopathy populist discourse are examined individually. As noted above, ideational (Nai and Maier, 2018; Nai and Martínez i Coma, 2019; see also Visser approaches to populism conceive it as comprising at least two key sub- et al., 2017). According to the congruency model of political prefer­ dimensions: people-centrism and anti-elitism (Rooduijn, 2019). In this ences, voters are more likely to support a politician if the politician’s respect, the different aspects of a personality might shape different re­ image is consistent with their own self-image (Caprara and Zimbardo, lationships with particular dimensions of populism. For instance, 2004). The similar and distinctive personality characteristics of citizens agreeableness is strongly associated with solidarity, interpersonal trust, and leaders can be traced back to a shared set of emotions, feelings, and conflict avoidance. Yet, as noted by Bakker et al. (2016, p. 305), “the preferences and values. Hence, to the extent that populist politicians populist anti-establishment message – accusing the political elite of tend to display darker personalities, individuals that score high on the incompetence, insubordination and profiteering at the expense of the Dark Triad traits would be more likely to prefer populist leaders and common people – matches a distrusting, tough-minded, cynical and parties over their non-populist opponents. Along these lines, recent intolerant personality”, which is consistent with disagreeable in­ research has found that voters who score high on the Dark Triad traits dividuals. Hence, agreeableness might positively correlate with evaluate politicians with dark personalities more positively than voters people-centrism and negatively with anti-elitism. Along these lines, who score low on those traits (Hart et al., 2018). Bakker et al. (2020) find that the anti-establishment communication Second, the Dark Triad traits are closely related to the Big Five style used by populist parties and candidates resonates with highly model, in that those who score higher in the dark traits also tend to score disagreeable people, but this does not occur with either people-centric low in agreeableness (Furnham et al., 2013; Jakobwitz and Egan, 2006; or conflict-seeking discourses. Similarly, Kenny and Bizumic’s (2019) Muris et al., 2017; Pailing et al., 2014).2 A number of studies have found zero-order correlations reveal a negative relationship between agree­ low agreeableness to be related to support for populist parties in coun­ ableness and anti-elitism and a positive one with people-centrism, with tries such as Austria (Aichholzer and Zandonella, 2016), Switzerland multivariate analyses showing positive effects of agreeableness on (Ackermann et al., 2018), the US, the Netherlands, and Germany (Bak­ people-centrism. ker et al., 2016), as well as Spain and Denmark (Bakker et al., 2020). Just as different elements of the populist message might attract Even if the overlap between the Big Five and the Dark Triad seems to be different types of personalities, different associations might also emerge restricted to between 18% and 39% (Vernon et al., 2008), the significant across the distinct facets of a dark personality. Although the Dark Triad relationship between the populist vote and low agreeableness also sug­ members are all moderately but consistently intercorrelated, most gests that populism could potentially appeal to dark personalities. studies find a stronger overlap between psychopathy and Machiavel­ However, there are several limitations to this argument. First, a lianism (Furnham et al., 2013). Likewise, the extant research tends to recurrent problem found in the research on populism is an inability to show more similarities in the patterns that correlate Machiavellianism separate the factors that drive support for populist ideas from those that and psychopathy; these two traits appear to be more strongly associated drive support for other ideological features with which populist ideas with adverse psychosocial consequences than narcissism does (Muris et al., 2017). In this way, expectations may vary depending on the specific Dark 2 The Big Five model considers five main personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability (see 3 Funder & Fast, 2010 and Mondak, 2010). Agreeableness is the personality trait Other works consider that ideology mediates the final effect of personality that best predicts moral reasoning (Athota, O’Connor, Jackson, 2009), as on populist voting behavior (e.g. Ackermann et al., 2018; Bakker et al., 2016; agreeable individuals stand out for their empathy and concern for others. Aichholzer et al., 2018). 2 C. Galais and G. Rico Electoral Studies 72 (2021) 102357 Triad member and sub-dimension of populism examined. This implies panellists, using quota sampling to approximately match Spain’s popu­ that the associations may be cancelled out or substantially moderated lation statistics in terms of sex, age, and education level. The sample when examining the overall measure of populism. The tendency of included 3031 adults (1542 male and 1489 female; their ages ranged narcissists to self-enhance, along with their strong sense of entitlement from 18 to 65; 36% had a university education or higher, 36% had should lead them to claim a fundamental role in politics, and hence to completed secondary education, and 28% had less than a secondary defend people-centrism – at least to the extent that they do not see education). themselves as part of the elite. Indeed, the empirical evidence suggests The populism components of anti-elitism and people-centrism were that populist attitudes are associated with individuals’ self-perceived measured using the instrument developed by Castanho Silva et al. political competence, which is consistent with the self-aggrandizement (2019). For each dimension, there are three items, one of which is and disproportionate overconfidence exhibited by narcissists (Camp­ negatively worded. The items on the anti-elitism scale are: “The gov­ bell et al., 2004; Sniderman, 1975; but see Pruysers, 2021).4 Likewise, ernment is pretty much run by a few big interests looking out for their inflated sense of deservingness makes narcissists more likely to themselves”, “Government officials use their power to try and improve perceive themselves as victims of abuse perpetrated by authority figures people’s lives” (reversed), and “Quite a few of the people running the and to distrust them (Harvey et al., 2014), and hence be more prone to government are corrupt”. The items for people-centrism are: “Politicians endorsing anti-establishment attitudes. should always listen closely to the problems of the people”, “Politicians don’t have to spend time among ordinary people to do a good job” H1. Narcissism will be positively associated with both people-centrism (reversed), and “The will of the people should be the highest principle in and anti-elitism. this country’s politics”. Agreement with each of the statements was We expect a similar pattern of associations for Machiavellianism and measured using a five-point scale, running from “strongly disagree” to psychopathy. Machiavellian individuals are noted for having a cynical “strongly agree”. Responses were rescaled to run from 0 to 1 and aver­ outlook on life and attitude towards people, and for being generally aged to obtain composite scores for each of the two dimensions. Finally, distrusting of others (Dahling et al., 2009). This should make them less a comprehensive scale was built to average the scores of the items. likely to sympathize with the people-centric element of populist To assess the Dark Triad, we used an adapted and shortened version discourse. For the same reason, we would expect obtaining high scores of the Dirty Dozen measure (Jonason and Webster, 2010). Specifically, on this trait to correlate positively with holding anti-establishment at­ we selected the two items with the highest factor loadings within each of titudes. On the other hand, psychopaths’ low empathy and disregard for the three dimensions in Jonason & Webster’s work. Narcissism was the well-being of others (Furnham et al., 2013) seem at odds with measured by using the following items: “I enjoy it when others pay applauding the people, while their impulsive nonconformity would in­ attention to me” and “I tend to expect special favours from others”. For crease the appeal of messages that criticise the established elites. Machiavellianism: “I have used deceit or have lied to get my way” and “I H2. Machiavellianism will be negatively associated with people tend to manipulate others to my own benefit”. Finally, psychopathy was centrism and positively associated with anti-elitism. measured with: “I tend to lack remorse” and “I tend not to be concerned with the morality of my actions”. The responses, measured using a H3. Psychopathy will be negatively associated with people centrism five-point Likert scale, were rescaled to run from 0 to 1 and averaged. and positively associated with anti-elitism. The Big Five personality traits are included as a relevant control, as In sum, our study aims to assess psychological predisposition to­ we are particularly interested in the role of agreeableness and its wards populism by contributing to this emerging literature in several interplay with the Dark Triad. Personality was measured using a short, ways. First, by using the Dark Triad traits to complement the general ten-item version of the Big Five Inventory (BFI-10), which is suitable in personality traits that are often used to explain populist attitudes. Sec­ contexts where there are serious time constraints, yet has been proven to ond, by inspecting the effects of both general and dark traits on the produce satisfactory levels of validity and reliability (Rammstedt and subdimensions of populism (people-centrism and anti-elitism), as this John, 2007). Each Big Five dimension thus consisted of one may help explaining some of the extant mixed evidence for general positively-scored and one negatively-scored item (the exact wordings personality traits. are shown in the Appendix). All items used (see Appendix A1) a five-point Likert scale. Responses were rescaled to range from 0 to 1, and 3. Research design averaged.5 Furthermore, our analyses include controls for sex, age (measured in We draw on an online survey conducted in September/October 2018 years), education (less than secondary, secondary, post-secondary), and on a sample of adult residents in Spain. Spain makes an interesting case ideological orientation (measured on an 11-point scale from “Left” to study because it features relevant populist parties on both extremes on “Right” and recoded to range 0–1). Controlling for ideology should the left-right spectrum. In contrast to most European countries, the first allow us to be more precise in identifying the associations between in­ relevant populist force to emerge in Spain was not a radical right-wing dividual differences and populism itself, clear of the overlap between party but a radical left-wing party – Podemos, which first made its populist ideas, on the one hand, and partisan and ideological orienta­ appearance in the 2014 EP elections and obtained 20.7% of the votes tions that have been found to be driven by personality traits (Bakker cast in the 2015 general election, placing them behind only the main­ et al., 2016). stream socialists (PSOE) and the conservatives (PP). The populist radical Given that our dependent variables are scales, we estimate the right party Vox first obtained representation in the 2018 regional elec­ tions in Andalusia and quickly became the third largest force in the November 2019 general elections, by combining a nationalist and anti- immigration message with the defence of traditional values and a fierce 5 The Cronbach’s alphas for our composite measures range from 0.54 to 0.69 anti-establishment rhetoric (Ferreira, 2019). for populist attitudes, 0.46 to 0.81 for dark traits, and 0.40 to 53 for the Big Five The sample for our study was selected by Qualtrics from among its traits. The only exception is Agreeableness, whose alpha value below 0.1 sug­ gests that this trait might not be properly measured with our two items, as previous studies using the BFI-10 in Spanish samples have found. Based on criterion validity tests, Gallego and Oberski (2012) recommend excluding the 4 The sole empirical work on the relationship between narcissism and statement “someone who is generally trusting.” We tested our hypotheses populist attitudes reveals a negative association, although this relationship is limiting ourselves to the less problematic Agreeableness item. As shown in not controlled for other general personality traits, does not pay attention to Appendix A6, the results for these alternative models do not compromise our populist sub-dimensions, and is confined to Canada (Pruysers, 2021). conclusions. 3 C. Galais and G. Rico Electoral Studies 72 (2021) 102357 association between the Big Five and the Dark Triad traits by using a negative coefficient becomes significant when the Dark Triad is present. series of OLS regressions. While the first model only considers the con­ This association becomes more apparent if we pay attention to people- trols and the Big Five traits, the second adds the Dark Triad dimensions centrism: when the Dark Triad is taken into consideration, agreeable­ to test their explanatory power and to explore how including them alters ness no longer has a positive, significant coefficient, but a non- the initial relationship found for the Big Five traits, with especial significant one. We can probably interpret this as model 2 achieving a attention paid to agreeableness. “neater” association between agreeableness and people-centrism, free from overlap with some Dark Triad traits. 4. Results Results regarding the model fit confirm the benefits of adding the Dark Triad traits in predicting populist attitudes. Yet, contrary to what Before presenting the results of the multivariate models, it is worth the literature finds for populist leaders and suggests when looking at the examining how the variables are distributed and relate to each other relationship between populist citizens and human values or self-oriented (descriptive statistics and pairwise correlations are displayed in justice (Marcos-Marne, 2019; Rothmund et al., 2020), populist citizens Tables A2 and A3 of the Appendix, respectively). Three of the Big Five score lower on the Dark Triad traits than non-populists, all else being personality traits significantly and positively correlate with the popu­ equal. Only one Dark Triad trait has a positive association with a lism scale. The strongest Pearson’s correlations (although moderate) are populist dimension: those scoring higher on narcissism also tend to found for openness and conscientiousness. When we consider the three exhibit higher levels of people-centrism. Dark Triad traits, we see that all three traits are significantly and negatively related to the populist scale, as well as with the populism 5. Discussion and conclusions subdimensions.6 Let us now turn to the multivariate models presented in Table 1.7 An While scholars seem to agree that populist leaders are not exactly the initial glance at models 1 to 3, considering the Big Five traits alone, ideal “dinner guests”, research on the relationship between citizens’ reveals that the comprehensive populist attitudes scale is positively populist attitudes and their dark traits is scant. In parallel, some works associated with openness and conscientiousness; however, we also point out that populist citizens are disagreeable, although the evidence observe non-significant coefficients for extraversion and agreeableness is mixed. Inspired by recent works that explore the Dark Triad traits of and small negative coefficients for the relationship with emotional sta­ populist leaders, our research has estimated the association between the bility. When we look at its components, we notice that agreeableness Dark Triad and populist attitudes, controlling for the effect of the Big exerts a positive impact on people-centrism but a negative one on anti- Five personality indicators. More precisely, we contended that narcis­ elitism. Extraversion has a positive association with people-centrism but sism would be positively associated with people-centrism and anti- a null one with anti-elitism, and emotional stability is unrelated to elitism attitudes, and that both Machiavellianism and psychopathy people-centrism but is negatively related to anti-elitism. would have a positive relationship with people-centrism and a negative Adding the Dark Triad to models 4 to 6 also has different effects on one with anti-elitism. In short, our results align with our hypotheses each of the dependent variables. Machiavellianism and psychopathy are with regards people-centrism, but overturn all the expectations negatively associated with the comprehensive populist scale, while the involving anti-elitism. coefficient for narcissism is positive but not statistically significant. Using a Spanish survey, we regressed the two populist subdimensions Machiavellianism and psychopathy are negatively related to both plus a comprehensive populist scale on the general and dark personality people-centrism and anti-elitism. By contrast, narcissism correlates traits, controlling for the usual suspects when it comes to populism. Our positively with people-centrism (associated with up to a 0.5 increase on results reveal some significant associations between the Dark Triad and the 0–1 scale when narcissism varies from its minimum to its maximum populist attitudes, but also yield other intriguing findings. value) but is unrelated to anti-elitism. Note that the effect sizes are For a start, some of the small associations and null effects found for moderate to small, but in some cases comparable to those of other some personality traits (e.g. extraversion, emotional stability) might be personality traits or even stronger. This is the case for Machiavellianism, due to measurement problems associated to short personality in­ where a shift from the lowest to the highest score is associated with a ventories (Ludeke and Larsen, 2017; Bakker and Lelkes, 2018). This 0.14 decrease on the 0–1 scale of people-centrism (a 0.18 standard- problem may be especially acute for Agreeableness (see footnote 4). deviation decrease per one standard deviation increase in Indeed, the low reliability of this measure might compromise our con­ Machiavellianism). clusions, particularly in regards the sign and size of its association with Interestingly, including the Dark Triad predictors provokes differ­ the anti-elitism and populism scales. Nevertheless, our results for the entiated effects on all the dependent variables. The initial coefficients relationship between Agreeableness and people-centrism are in line with for the relationship between the Big Five and the populism scale are Kenny and Bizumic’s (2019) findings. We also detect a negative rela­ affected, in that the coefficient for openness and conscientiousness tionship with anti-elitism that partly aligns with previous research shrinks when the Dark Triad is present. As for agreeableness, the (Vasilopoulos and Jost, 2020; Fatke, 2019; Landwehr and Steiner, 2017). Most related to our hypotheses, our results go against Pruysers’ (2021) findings for Canada: he finds a negative effect for narcissism, 6 As for the degree of overlap between the personality traits, the highest while we find a positive one; we find negative associations for the other scores are found for psychopathy and Machiavellianism (.42*), on the one two dark traits, he finds none. These discrepancies might be due to hand, and Machiavellianism and extraversion (− 0.38*), on the other. We can different approaches when measuring personality, or to different con­ conclude that such an overlap does not justify the exclusion of any of these texts, but also to the fact that we distinguish between people-centrism variables nor does it cause multicollinearity problems. and anti-elitism. 7 Because our models consider a remarkable number of predictors, we have Resuming the debate about the virtues and dangers of populism, we applied a multiple testing correction procedure to adjust our statistical confi­ can add the following to the existing findings: populist citizens are not dence measures based on the number of tests performed, to rule out the pos­ “undesirable dinner guests.” Quite the contrary: they have notably low sibility that some of the coefficients will turn out significant simply due to levels of Machiavellianism and psychopathy. If someone ruins the ban­ chance. Table A4 in the appendix shows conventional p-values alongside Šidák- Holm adjusted p-values. Only two initially significant coefficients turned out to quet, he will more likely be a non-populist. This might seem counter- be non-significant after correcting for multiple comparisons: the association intuitive at first glance, if only for the negative connotations of the between Agreeableness and overall populism, and the one between emotional populist label. Yet it speaks to the need to differentiate populism from stability and anti-elitism. None of the coefficients relevant to our hypotheses are other traits often associated but distinct from it. Populism, after all, is affected by these alternative estimations. intrinsic to a belief in democracy, and populist ideas remain much more 4 C. Galais and G. Rico Electoral Studies 72 (2021) 102357 Table 1 Regression models of populist attitudes. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) Populism Anti-elitism People-centrism Populism Anti-elitism People-centrism Female 0.02*** 0.02*** 0.03*** 0.01* 0.01 0.01* (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) Age 0.00*** 0.00*** 0.00*** 0.00*** 0.00* 0.00*** (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) Secondary 0.00 − 0.00 0.00 − 0.00 − 0.00 − 0.00 (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) Higher 0.00 − 0.01 0.01 − 0.00 − 0.01 0.01 (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) Ideology − 0.08*** − 0.06*** − 0.11*** − 0.07*** − 0.05*** − 0.09*** (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) (0.01) Openness 0.13*** 0.11*** 0.15*** 0.10*** 0.08*** 0.12*** (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) Conscientiousness 0.15*** 0.16*** 0.14*** 0.10*** 0.11*** 0.09*** (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) Extraversion 0.01 − 0.02 0.04* 0.01 − 0.02 0.03* (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) Agreeableness − 0.01 − 0.08*** 0.05** − 0.04** − 0.10*** 0.02 (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) Emotional stability − 0.02 − 0.04* − 0.01 − 0.02 − 0.04* − 0.01 (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) Narcissism 0.02 − 0.01 0.05** (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) Machiavellianism − 0.12*** − 0.10*** − 0.14*** (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) Psychopathy − 0.08*** − 0.07*** − 0.08*** (0.01) (0.02) (0.02) Constant 0.57*** 0.63*** 0.50*** 0.70*** 0.75*** 0.64*** (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.02) (0.03) (0.03) Adjusted R2 0.12 0.07 0.13 0.16 0.09 0.17 Observations 3029 3029 3029 3029 3029 3029 Unstandardized OLS coefficients, with standard errors in parentheses. *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p < .001. widespread at the mass level than is support for populist parties (Haw­ Appendix A. Supplementary data kins and Littvay, 2019). At the same time, the connection between narcissism and people- Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi. centrism speaks to the research on collective narcissism and populism org/10.1016/j.electstud.2021.102357. (Golec de Zavala et al., 2019). Our measures are probably tapping the communalities between individual and collective narcissism (e.g. claims References of special recognition and privilege, hostility towards others, aggressive reactions to criticism) and spurring morally superior visions about what Ackermann, K., Zampieri, E., Freitag, M., 2018. Personality and voting for a right-wing populist party – evidence from Switzerland. Swiss Polit. Sci. Rev. 24 (4), 545–564. it means to be part of “the people” (Müller, 2016). Another possibility is https://doi.org/10.1111/spsr.12330. that narcissism overlaps with a trait that is not included in the Big Five Aichholzer, J., Zandonella, M., 2016. 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