The dark side of the mood. Candidate evaluation, voter perceptions, and the driving role of (dark) personality traits

Abstract

Voter perceptions of leadership traits impact overall candidate evaluations. Less is however known about the impact of candidates’ personality traits, and especially the “darker” ones (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy), above and beyond the structuring role of partisan attitudes. We present a multi-method approach combining an experimental design and a post-electoral survey on the 2020 US Presidential election. Survey data (study 1) shows that perceived personality affects candidate evaluation beyond partisanship. Experimental evidence (study 2) confirms a causal relationship between candidate personality and subsequent evaluation: exposure to a negatively (positively) framed candidate personality reduces (increases) candidate likeability. Moreover, exposure to candidates scoring higher on the dark traits is more impactful than exposure to candidates scoring lower on those same traits. Across both studies, the results highlight the relevance of dark triad personality traits for candidate favorability, and the existence of asymmetric effects for politicians scoring higher vs. lower on dark traits.