A Short Scale to Measure Self-Reported Aversive Personality in Political Elites

Abstract

In order to explain the behavior of political elites, research increasingly considers personality traits. Within this line of research, a recent focus is on socially aversive – yet non-pathological – personality traits (e.g., Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy), with the idea to better understand behavior violating generally accepted ethical, moral, and social norms. Assessments of politicians’ aversive personality traits have so far been almost exclusively based on observer reports of experts and voters. Herein, by contrast, we introduce the Political Elites Aversive Personality Scale (“PEAPS”) particularly tailored to measure self-reported aversive personality among politicians. More precisely, based on two studies with German politicians, we develop a 6-item short scale comprising aspects of different socially aversive personality traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and spitefulness). The scale shows an acceptable model fit, an acceptable internal consistency, an acceptable measurement equivalence, and meaningful correlations with other (self-reported) psychological traits and campaign behavior. Moreover, the scale significantly contributes to the explanation of candidates’ negative campaigning, going beyond the explanatory power of models capturing broad, basic personality traits. Overall, the suggested scale provides interesting links to research in (political) psychology and can help to explain attitudes, behavior, and performance of political elites.

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to Benjamin E. Hilbig, Manfred Schmitt and Lauritz Bromme for extremely helpful comments in preparation of data collection and data analysis. All remaining mistakes are, of course, our responsibility alone. The authors would also like to thank all the candidates who took the time to participate in our surveys despite busy schedules.

Data availability statement

Since our data contain sensitive, non-anonymized information from candidates, the data can be only made available to other researchers on request.

Declaration of interest

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Additional information

Funding

The first three authors acknowledge generous financial support from the German Research Foundation (DFG) (project number 441574527).