A bunch of narcissistic, psychopathic, Machiavellians? Britain's party members and their leaders
3 min read
In 1964, Fact magazine sent a survey to over 12,000 American psychiatrists, asking them whether they believed that the ultra-conservative Republican candidate Barry Goldwater was “psychologically fit to serve as President of the United States”.
It was a wheeze that not only led to it being successfully sued for libel by Goldwater but also to the American Psychiatric Association eventually adopting the so-called Goldwater rule, which states that, when it comes to public figures, “it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.”
So, while we might casually and informally dismiss a politician we don’t like as mildly loopy or even downright dangerous, only a fool would insist in print or pixel that their professional qualifications enabled and entitled them to diagnose that same politician with one of the plethora of full-blown psychiatric disorders listed in the tome known as the DSM.
Fortunately, then, that’s not what our recently published research on Personality, populism and party: support for ‘dark triad’ leaders in the UK tries to do. Instead, we use surveys of the members of five political parties (Greens, Lib Dems, Labour, Tories and Reform; Restore Britain wasn’t a thing at the time) to tap into their personality traits – including those associated with the so-called dark triad: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and (subclinical, as opposed to mad-axe-murdering!) psychopathy, whose definitions we borrow from psychologist John Rauthmann.
Narcissism, then, is ‘the tendency to harbour grandiose and inflated self-views while devaluing others…. Narcissists are shown to exhibit extreme vanity; attention and admiration seeking; feelings of superiority, authority, and entitlement; exhibitionism and bragging; and manipulation.’
Machiavellianism is ‘the tendency to cynical, misanthropic, cold, pragmatic, and immoral beliefs; detached affect; pursuit of self-beneficial and agentic goals (e.g., power, money); strategic long-term planning; and manipulation tactics.’
Psychopathy is ‘the tendency to impulsive thrill-seeking, cold affect, manipulation, and antisocial behaviours…, often falling into a primary (affective shallowness, lack of empathy and remorse, superficial charm, and manipulation) and secondary component (social deviance, low socialization, impulsivity, irresponsibility, aggression, sensation seeking, delinquency.)’
First, we look at the extent to which members of each party exhibit those three traits. Then we look at whether party members who themselves exhibit them prefer – at least in the abstract (no names, no pack drill!) – leaders who seem to exhibit them too, before going on to ask whether members of particular political parties are more likely to prefer those dark triad leaders.
And it turns out that they are. Reform UK members and Conservative Party members score higher on dark triad measures than Labour, Lib Dem and Green members. And party members with stronger dark triad traits are, indeed, more likely to favour leaders displaying them too.
No surprise, perhaps, that Tory and Reform members gravitate towards populist leaders such as Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, who in many ways are the personifications of the kind of leader they say they like − supremely self-confident and charismatic alphas who mix charm with a take-no-prisoners/rules-are-for-little people attitude.
Just as importantly for our understanding of British politics, however, is the psychological convergence our research reveals between, on the one hand, members of the centre-right Conservative Party and the populist radical right Reform UK and, on the other, those who belong to the Greens, Labour and the Lib Dems. This is yet another piece of evidence supporting the emerging consensus among political scientists that the UK is now characterised by two-bloc, rather than two-party, politics – all of which has huge implications for tactical voting at the next general election, whenever Andy Burnham decides to call it.
Tim Bale is Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London
