Trump supporters report higher levels of psychopathy, manipulativeness, callousness, and narcissism
Trump supporters report higher levels of psychopathy, manipulativeness, callousness, and narcissism
What I wonder is how much of that is innate versus learned.
Because it has been an increasing talking point among the right wing and evangelical churches that empathy is bad. And... a lot of that boils down to not having any.
It's like the golden rule simply means as long as we each treat each other shitty we're good. There needs to be another qualifier, and empathy, or kindness, or something else also needs to be attached. But, look who's their leader! Clean. Your. House.
Look at John Fetterman. He had a stroke, now he's conservative, callous, etc. so, I'd bet it's both nature and nurture, but the uneducated and religious are more likely to be conservative than liberal.
it has been an increasing talking point among the right wing and evangelical churches that empathy is bad
While I'm inclined to believe this, my attempt to add a source came up mostly empty, other than an amusing chapter of CS Lewis' Screwtape Letters.
This was new to me so I tried looking it up as well. I found a lot of results right away with startpage, which makes me wonder what search engine you were using?
They (the evangelicals) are apparently calling it "toxic empathy" and they jump through a lot of loops to claim that it's bad to have empathy with the victims of USA republican policies.
My first result was a long opinion piece criticizing evangelicals for their newfound crusade against empathy: https://churchleaders.com/news/511911-the-scandal-of-evangelical-empathy.html/4
2nd result is an evangelical that does a bit of mind bending to explain why empathy with outgroups is "toxic": https://unityinchristianity.com/2025/02/03/the-truth-about-toxic-empathy-and-why-its-becoming-a-controversial-topic/.
The 3rd article has a claim that Jesus Himself was not empathic: "Clearly the Lord Jesus Christ can be sympathetic, but He cannot be empathetic in the sense of identifying with our sinful emotions and desires." https://www.e-n.org.uk/features/2025-03-the-problem-with-empathy/ That article also references a book by an evangelical called "the sin of empathy".
Modern USA could be summed up by the old Russian adage: "And then, somehow, it got worse."
I was at a cocktail party with people who mostly I have known for at least 15 years. This guy came up who is the husband of a good friend of my wife and he was talking about how he doesn’t believe in empathy anymore.
There’s definitely something in the water
Have you ever seen the culture in USA? Literally both "parties" are genocidal. It's not learned so much as indoctrinated from birth. Not to mention the racism, patriarchy, etc.
No shit, Sherlock.
Don't forget pedophilia
They love kids, even the ones who aren't pedophiles still sexualize children all the time and are constantly thinking about how we must "protect the children"
who aren't pedophiles
yea right
You needed to conduct official research to figure that one out?
I'm up in Canada in northern Ontario and I have a few friends (on very thin ground mind you), relatives and associates who support or agree with Trump or MAGA ..... and all of them are racist, show signs of psychopathy, are manipulative, are callous and are narcissists.
9/10 if I meet a total ignorant jerk, they'll be a MAGA idiot
I needed the laugh, thanks
I would imagine it's an even wider scope than that... People who vote for bigoted, ignorant candidates are themselves bigoted and ignorant.
"LOOK AT THEM! THEY'RE JUST LIKE ME!"
(Votes)
Explains Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Josh Hawley, Jim Jordan, John Kennedy, etc. etc.
“This paper was several years in the making, starting as a result of the 2016 election, and was designed to address why some people might view favorably a political figure with a history of business failures, bankruptcies, misogynistic statements caught on video, use of charity money for a self-portrait, etc,” explained study author Craig Neumann, a Regents Professor of Psychology at the University of North Texas.
To investigate these links, the researchers conducted two large surveys with a total of over 9,000 participants from the United States. The first sample consisted of 1,000 men recruited online, about one-third of whom were racial or ethnic minorities. The second sample included 8,047 men and women who completed personality questionnaires on a public psychology website.
Participants in both samples completed a range of validated questionnaires measuring political attitudes, personality traits, and empathy. Political ideology was assessed through questions about general political orientation, preferences for military versus social spending, support for gun control, and evaluations of Trump’s first term as president. The researchers used structural equation modeling, a statistical technique that allows for the testing of relationships between multiple variables at once, while accounting for measurement errors.
Science confirming what we already know lol
As it should. Just because we think we know something doesn’t mean we shouldn’t measure it.
There is a book that gave a scientific explanation and it was written fifty years ago.
"Future Shock" by Alvin Toffler. Toffler was a sociologist. He studied what happened in the past when there were radical changes in society. The first great wave was the switch from hunter/gatherer tribes to farming towns. 5,000 years later there was a leap from farming to industry. Both times there were people who couldn't or wouldn't adapt themselves to the new order.
'Future shock' was his name for the madness of people who would do anything to hold on to a past that was already dead.
Interesting article on the subject: https://mgorbis.medium.com/the-future-as-a-way-of-life-4bc314ec97de
You want a major mind fuck?
"Stand On Zanzibar" by John Brunner. Brunner's novel won the 1969 Hugo for Best Science Fiction Novel. It is set in the early 21st Century. The author based his predictions on Toffler's work. He imagined things like Detroit being a ghost town; legalized pot; the internet; AI ; well paid adults needing roommates and a lot of other things. He got enough right to be very scary indeed.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/stand-on-zanzibar-john-brunner/7252770?ean=9781250781222&next=t
You can just say nazis.
The weirdest thing about MAGA psychopathy is that Trump is in the Epstein files.
Yet another groundbreaking story from the pages of the medical journal "DUH".
it just baffled me how many of them there are. It kind of feels like at this point it’s human nature honestly.
just as frustrating are all the people in the "middle" who are more ambivalent about trump but still voted for him because of egg prices.
It's just been made acceptable and even praised.
So everyone inclined is following suit.
It's not "human nature" or any other psuedo-science. It's the unsurprisingly result of an extremely fascist society. Literally founded on genocide and slavery. Both "parties" openly support genocide right now. This is what USA has always been.
Did everyone hear that water is wet btw? Wild, I know.
The same post under reddit:
Iirc, top level posts are supposed to pertain to the study itself. That isn't really something negative in a science community, imo. Look at practically every top level comment here to see the reason.
Lower reading levels too.
Then say screech at everyone that they are “alpha.”
Boggles my fucking mind.
more like pre-alpha. veeeery early stages of development.
Lead poisoning is a hell of a thing. No wonder the Republicans want to abolish lead abatement programs.
/s because yes it's more complicated than that
MAGAs are shitty people. Gee, what a surprise.
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is psypost even a legitimate psychology site.
They provide a reference: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2025.104638
I feel like at least one of those traits are a necessary prerequisite to getting indoctrinated into the Trump cult.
The real question is why all of those traits are seemingly super high right now.
I think its the same phenomena as why there are suddenly so many LGBT people around. In the past, such traits were punishable.
As the planet continues to be destroyed, any progress will depend on reigning in extreme privileges. So the privileged will increasingly embrace fascism and violence to maintain their position. There are not many people more privileged on the planet than MAGA.
The sky is also blue.
Yeah I’m surprised. Surprised anyone needed a fucking study to know that.
I bet there’s a higher prevalence of coprophagia as well.
Don't forget pedophilia!
Such common knowledge I wasn’t sure it bore mentioning but a solid bet if you can find someone to take it!
Say as they do. Do as they say.
Most of them can be identified from a distance thankfully
Who'd have imagined that a state founded on genocide and slavery would be run by sociopaths? Always has been.
even if they had lower levels of psychopathy, manipulativeness, callousness, and narcissism I would still hate them.
You don't say?
That tracks...
This feels like a post from 2019.
I find this hard to believe.
psychology is not science
source: I am a psychologist.
Then this is not psychology.
It is however a Wissenschaft.
for sure. it's definitely research.
Also, just because something is not science, doesn't mean it's not valuable. Art, compassion, diplomacy, love, money, etc are all unscientific yet valuable.