The Role of Aggression in the Relationship Between the General Dark Personality Traits, Honesty/Humility and Support for Political Violence

Abstract

Various contemporary psychological models of radicalisation,
next to contextual factors, also highlighted the role of
relatively stable dispositions in accepting extremist ideologies
and political violence related to these ideologies. Newer
studies, focused on the role of dark personality traits in the
context of radicalisation, relatively consistently found that
persons high on dark personality traits are more likely to
support political violence and extreme politics. However,
empirical explanations of this relationship are still rare.
Therefore, this study, in line with previous research, tested if
aggression, a common characteristic of dark personality
traits, lies behind the relationship between dark personality
traits and the honesty/humility dimension from the HEXACO
model with support for political violence, while taking into
account potential sources of bias that were present in earlier
studies. The results obtained on a sample of 191 faculty
students robustly exhibited that the relationship between the
studied personality traits and support for political violence
disappears after statistically controlling for aggression.
Therefore, the results of this study offer a valuable
contribution to the understanding of extremist attitudes and
provide empirical argumentation in favour of the hypotheses
on the role of dispositions in the political lives of citizens.