The darker angels of our nature: Do social worldviews mediate the associations that dark personality features have with ideological attitudes?

• Published in: Personality and individual differences 2020-07, Vol.160, p.109920-12, Article 109920
• Main Authors: Zeigler-Hill, Virgil, Martinez, Jose L., Vrabel, Jennifer K., Ezenwa, Michael Onyeka, Oraetue, Henry, Nweze, Tochukwu, Andrews, David, Kenny, Brianna
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antisocial personality disorder; Associations; Attitudes; Authoritarianism; Competition; Dark triad; Dominance; Egalitarianism; Ideology; Machiavellianism; Narcissism; Personality; Psychopathy; Right-Wing Authoritarianism; Sadism; Social dominance orientation; Worldview; Worldviews
• ISSN: 0191-8869; 1873-3549
• DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2020.109920

•Dark personality features were positively associated with competitive worldviews.•Dark personality features sometimes had indirect associations with SDO through competitive worldviews.•Dark personality features had, at best, weak associations with dangerous worldviews. The present studies examined the associations that narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, sadism, and spitefulness had with the competitive and dangerous social worldviews as well as the possibility that these worldviews may explain, at least in part, the associations that these dark personality features had with the ideological attitudes of social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). Across three studies (N = 2,103), we found the dark personality features to be positively associated with the competitive social worldview in Studies 1 and 3 but these associations were much weaker in Study 2. Narcissism, psychopathy, and spitefulness had indirect associations with the dominance and anti-egalitarianism aspects of SDO through the competitive social worldview in Study 3 but not in Study 2. In contrast, the dark personality features had, at best, weak associations with the dangerous social worldview as well as divergent associations with aspects of RWA. More specifically, narcissism and spitefulness were positively associated with aspects of RWA but psychopathy was negatively associated with RWA. Discussion focuses on the role that social worldviews – especially perceptions of the world as being a highly competitive environment – may play in the connections that dark personality features have with various outcomes including ideological attitudes.