Dark personality traits predict support for violence by both Israel and Hamas

Recent psychology research indicates that while most people base their support for political violence on their personal ideological beliefs, individuals with high levels of psychopathy and sadism tend to endorse violence across the board. A new study examining attitudes toward the Israel-Hamas conflict suggests that these specific dark personality traits are linked to support for violent actions committed by both sides. The findings were published in Personality and Individual Differences.

In the study of political psychology, a common assumption is that people evaluate violence based on their group identity and political worldview. This means individuals usually justify violence when it is committed by a group they agree with, while firmly rejecting similar violent actions when committed by opposing groups. In highly polarized situations like the conflict between Israel and Hamas, this translates to an actor-specific view of violence. An individual might support the military actions of one side, but it is unusual for them to endorse violence from both sides simultaneously.

The author of the new study, Tobias Greitemeyer of the University of Innsbruck, wanted to explore whether certain personality characteristics override this partisan loyalty. He focused on the Dark Tetrad, a grouping of four socially aversive personality traits. These traits include narcissism, which involves grandiosity and entitlement; Machiavellianism, characterized by manipulative and cynical behavior; psychopathy, marked by callousness, low empathy, and impulsive thrill-seeking; and sadism, which involves deriving pleasure from the suffering of others.

Previous investigations have linked these traits to various forms of hostility. For instance, a 2024 study covered by PsyPost indicated that higher scores on dark personality traits were associated with higher levels of antisemitism, showing how these characteristics can shape views on Middle Eastern geopolitics. Other research, such as a 2015 study on consumer attitudes, has shown that dark personality traits are related to a concept called moral disengagement. Moral disengagement refers to the mental gymnastics people use to justify harmful behavior, allowing them to ignore their own moral standards without feeling guilty.

To test how these traits relate to attitudes toward the Israel-Hamas conflict, Greitemeyer conducted two separate online studies. The first study recruited 257 German-speaking participants, mostly from Austria and Germany. The participants completed a standardized questionnaire measuring their levels of the Dark Tetrad traits, as well as measures of their political orientation, their general attitudes toward war and peace, and their specific support for violent actions carried out by Israel and Hamas.

The results provided evidence for the traditional view that political violence is generally actor-specific. Support for violence by Israel and support for violence by Hamas were negatively correlated, indicating that participants who endorsed violence by one actor were less likely to endorse violence by the other. Older participants tended to show more support for Israeli actions and less support for Hamas actions. Men reported more support for Israeli military actions than women did, but there was no difference between men and women regarding support for Hamas.

When looking at personality, however, a different pattern emerged. Psychopathy and sadism were positively associated with support for violent actions by both Israel and Hamas. Individuals scoring higher in these two traits showed a generalized acceptance of violence, regardless of which side was responsible. This generalized support remained present even when the researcher accounted for the participants’ political ideologies. Narcissism and Machiavellianism, on the other hand, did not show this consistent, cross-actor support for violence.

A second study was conducted with 470 United Kingdom citizens to see if these findings would hold up in a larger sample and to explore potential psychological mechanisms. In addition to measuring the Dark Tetrad traits and support for violence by Israel and Hamas, participants completed assessments for two other variables. One was their interest in militarism, which captures a fascination with weapons, special forces, and martial arts. The other was their propensity for moral disengagement.

The second study mirrored the findings of the first. Once again, support for Israel and Hamas was negatively correlated overall, but psychopathy and sadism reliably predicted an endorsement of violence by both actors. Narcissism was only linked to support for Hamas, and Machiavellianism showed no reliable association with support for either side.

The data also indicated that interest in militarism and moral disengagement helped explain the connection between dark personality traits and support for violence, though only partially. Both militarism and moral disengagement acted as mediating factors for why psychopathy and sadism predicted support for Israeli violent actions. However, neither of these psychological mechanisms explained the link between the dark traits and support for Hamas’s violent actions, suggesting that different cognitive pathways might be at play depending on the specific actor involved.

“This confirms the work of earlier research and slightly extends it by explicitly showing that individuals scoring high on dark personality traits (especially on psychopathy and sadism) tend to exhibit support for political violence of multiple conflicted and even directly opposing groups,” said Tomislav Pavlović, a researcher working on the MOTIKA project, which focuses on understanding drivers and barriers to peaceful and violent collective action, who was not involved in the study.

“As earlier research demonstrated, individuals scoring high on dark personality traits also tend to exhibit more favorable attitudes toward violence in general,” Pavlović told PsyPost. “From this perspective, it is not surprising that individuals showing stronger support for violence as a general method of achieving goals also see it as a more acceptable method of achieving political goals.”

“The findings of this paper could be taken as an extension of existing research, indicating that endorsement of political violence is not related only to political beliefs and social identity (ideological partisanship), but also to individual differences in dark personality traits,” said Anja Wertag, a researcher at the Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences in Croatia who was also not involved in the work. She told PsyPost the study highlights “the importance of integrating personality and political psychology perspectives in investigating violence endorsement.”

The findings are in line with research covered by PsyPost in July 2024, which indicated that psychopathy strongly predicted support for military violence against civilians among Russian residents. The results also align with another 2024 study showing that higher psychopathy is associated with greater attitudinal support for politically motivated violence across multiple countries. Additionally, the conclusions echo a 2021 study that linked psychopathic traits to support for violent social change, regardless of whether that violence was endorsed by left-wing or right-wing groups.

But as with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind regarding this study. The data rely on self-reported questionnaires, meaning participants might have altered their answers to appear more socially acceptable, especially on sensitive political topics. The samples were also non-representative groups of internet users from Europe, which limits how broadly the findings can be applied to the general public or to populations directly involved in the conflict.

“It is important to note that the Dark Tetrad traits explained only a modest amount of the variance in support for Israeli and Hamas violent actions – ranging from 5 to 8%,” Wertag noted. She added that because “all Dark Tetrad traits are multidimensional and the current study used only a brief measure to assess them, future research should include broader measures of dark traits to enable a clearer view of the relations between different aspects of the dark traits and violence endorsement.”

Pavlović pointed out another geographical limitation regarding the samples. “Finally, it is worth mentioning that none of the samples were from Israel or Gaza,” he said. “Therefore, (at least) the majority of participants perceive the conflict from the perspective of relatively neutral bystanders. We cannot tell whether these results would be replicated had the study been conducted on participants whose nations are involved in conflict.”

The cross-sectional design of the studies also means the research cannot determine cause and effect. It is possible that consuming media about political violence alters a person’s psychological state, rather than personality traits alone driving their political attitudes. Future research could investigate whether these patterns hold true in other geopolitical conflicts and explore other psychological mechanisms, such as a lack of empathic concern for victims, that might bridge the gap between dark personality traits and support for war.

“While dark personality traits and support for political violence are correlated, this relationship may reflect a third underlying variable (such as experience of violence),” Pavlović explained. “Furthermore, support for political violence should not be equated with actual participation in violent acts.”

Wertag agreed, warning against leaping to broad conclusions. “I am concerned about a possible overinterpretation of the results regarding the link between violence endorsement, regardless of the side, and psychopathy and sadism due to the above-mentioned methodological constraints,” she said. “The results also do not imply that personality traits are more important than political orientation; they simply highlight that both matter. Finally, the results say nothing about the actual tendency toward violent behavior.”

The study, “When darkness overrides partisanship: Psychopathy and sadism predict support for violence on both sides of the Israel–Hamas conflict,” was authored by Tobias Greitemeyer.