Voters in the United States are faced with the unenviable task today of choosing between a scheming power-hungry career politician and a narcissistic psychopath as their next president, according to a study by Canadian psychologists.
The study, which was conducted by researchers at Brock University in Ontario, evaluated the public personas of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump and found that both candidates are perceived as unlikeable because they don’t exhibit certain traits that would make them easy to connect with, said Tony Volk, one of the co-authors of the study.
(click to list to the full interview with Tony Volk)
ListenResearchers got a group of independent experts to rate the candidates’ personality traits based on a HEXACO personality scale, which includes include honesty or humility, emotionality, extraversion, agreeableness (or quickness to anger), conscientiousness and openness to experience.
Machiavellian traits
“The ratings were consistent with Machiavellianism in the case of Hillary Clinton and narcissism and psychopathy for Donald Trump,” another study co-author Angela Book said in a news release.
Clinton scored low, in the bottom 15 per cent of population, for being honest and humble, Volk said. Her sincerity was particularly low, in the bottom 10 per cent. Clinton also scored low marks on her emotionality, which is anxiety and detachment, coming across as being cold, he said.
“Otherwise she was fairly normal as far as being agreeable, being patient, not being vengeful, fairly normal in terms of her extraversion, and slightly high for her openness, and very high for her conscientiousness,” Volk said. “So it comes across in total as somebody who looks like in many ways as a career politician, somebody who’s somewhat scheming, a little bit cold and detached but quite dedicated and conscientious in her efforts.”
A narcissist and a psychopath?
Trump, meanwhile, was also ranked low in honesty and humility, Volk said.
“But whereas Clinton was in bottom 10-15 per cent, he was in the bottom 1 to 0.1 per cent,” Volk said. “When it comes to agreeableness, which is how quickly you react he was again in the bottom 1 to 0.1 per cent.”
Trump was also low on emotionality and some aspects of conscientiousness, especially on being reckless and not being prudent, Volk said.
On the positive side for Trump he was viewed as being very extroverted and being very socially bold.
“So what you get in the overall picture of him is somebody who might be a bold agent of change but who also has some characteristics that are disturbingly similar to a narcissist and a psychopath,” Volk said. “He (Trump) might be the guy who you’d want to back if you’re trying to blow up the system.”
The study, which is published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, underlies why so many Americans are unhappy with their choices in this election, Volk said.
“You really have the lesser of two evils, which is something that has been said a lot about these candidates,” Volk said. “For myself I would put the most emphasis on who’s never going to push the big red nuclear button. And to avoid pushing that you want somebody who’s conscientious and not reactive. And that’s not Donald Trump.”
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