Authoritarianism, psychopathy, and resistance to wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic: A partial replication and extension of key findings

Abstract

Controversial recent research suggests Americans with more authoritarian tendencies showed less concern about COVID-19 and self-report less mask wearing. The present study set out to replicate this result with a larger sample. The study also sought to extend the original research by investigating how the Dark Triad traits of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism are related 1 COVID-19 attitudes and behaviors. Nine-hundred ninety-six United States high school graduates were asked 8 questions about their level of concern about the effects of the virus on health and finances, how frequently they wore masks, which authority figures they trusted, and whether China was responsible for the virus. Correlational and regression analyzes showed that authoritarianism, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy were all negatively related to self-reported mask wearing. An explanation is offered for an apparent contradiction between the presented results and studies that showed authoritarian support for lockdowns early during the outbreak.

Psychopathy and COVID‐19: Callousness, impulsivity, and motivational reasons for engaging in prevention behavior

“…callousness, COVID-19, impulsivity, motivation, personality, prevention, psychopathy Clemente, 2021;Gogola et al, 2021;Hardin et al, 2021;Hughes & Machan, 2021;Montiero et al, 2022;Nowak et al, 2020;Prichard & Turner, 2023;Triberti et al, 2021). Other studies using a two-factor (primary and secondary) assessment of psychopathy found mixed evidence of either no association of prevention behavior with primary and secondary psychopathy or negative associations with both (Blanchard et al, 2023;Zajenkowski et al, 2020).…”

“…Most existing studies that investigated the relation between psychopathy and engagement in COVID‐19 prevention (and related) behavior have relied on single‐trait assessment of psychopathy embedded in a Dark Triad conceptualization of personality. Although some of these studies found no association between psychopathy and prevention behavior, most revealed a negative association (Allessandri et al., 2020; Chávez‐Ventura et al., 2022; Espinosa & Clemente, 2021; Gogola et al., 2021; Hardin et al., 2021; Hughes & Machan, 2021; Montiero et al., 2022; Nowak et al., 2020; Prichard & Turner, 2023; Triberti et al., 2021). Other studies using a two‐factor (primary and secondary) assessment of psychopathy found mixed evidence of either no association of prevention behavior with primary and secondary psychopathy or negative associations with both (Blanchard et al., 2023; Zajenkowski et al., 2020).…”