Mastodawn

William Lindsey

"A new psychological study has found that people who report favorable views of Donald Trump also tend to score higher on measures of callousness, manipulation, and other malevolent traits—and lower on empathy and compassion. The findings, based on two large surveys of U.S. adults, shed light on how personality traits relate to political beliefs, including support for Trump and conservative ideology."

~ Eric W. Dolan

#Trump #authoritarianism #empathy #psychopathy
/1

https://www.psypost.org/trump-supporters-report-higher-levels-of-psychopathy-manipulativeness-callousness-and-narcissism/

Trump supporters report higher levels of psychopathy, manipulativeness, callousness, and narcissism

Support for Donald Trump is linked to darker personality traits, including increased psychopathy and decreased empathy, new research finds. The study also connects conservative political beliefs to lower benevolence, suggesting personality may shape how people engage with politics and ideology.

PsyPost Psychology News

William Lindsey

"Conservative political ideology is associated with social dominance orientation (SDO), right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), psychopathic propensities (PPs), and other malevolent dispositions, and reduced empathy."

~ Craig S. Neumann and Darlene A. Ngo

#Trump #authoritarianism #empathy #psychopathy
/2

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0092656625000704?via%3Dihub

William Lindsey

"We examined the links between SDO, RWA, PPs and political ideology, and whether those who view Trump favorably reported higher PPs (or malevolent traits) and reduced empathy or benevolent dispositions."

#Trump #authoritarianism #empathy #psychopathy
/3

William Lindsey

"The report also revealed that while both men and women showed similar patterns, the associations were stronger for men."

~ Adam Lynch

#Trump #authoritarianism #empathy #psychopathy #men #gender #MaleEntitlement #MaleDomination
/3

https://www.alternet.org/trump-supporters-maga-empathy/

Callous and manipulative: Study says 'malevolent personality traits' dominate Trump voters

PsyPost reports a new psychological study has found that people who claim favorable views of President Donald Trump also tend to score higher on measures of callousness, manipulation, and other malevolent traits—and lower on empathy and compassion.“Our findings suggest a link between malevolent pers...

Alternet.org

William Lindsey

"Can we stop supporting sociopathic leaders? Isn’t it possible to recognize these qualities as dangerous warning signs of unfitness rather than expressions of strength? What does it say about our body politic that so many Americans are drawn to these types of people? Is this attraction a dangerous affliction found in every society? Should there be psychological tests as one guardrail against their continuing success?"

~ Steven Beschloss

#Trump #RFKJr #psychopathy
/4

https://www.americaamerica.news/p/can-we-stop-supporting-sociopathic

Can We Stop Supporting Sociopathic Leaders?

A Saturday Prompt

America, America

@wdlindsy Yes, one of the many things from the Star Trek universe that would help our societies today. Every officer in Starfleet must undergo multiple and lengthy psychological assessments, evaluations, and testing. and the one's who are psycho get dropped from the service.

Toni Aittoniemi Aug 9, 2025

@adam @wdlindsy According to very recent studies in political neuropsychology, we could probably scan people’s brains and with modern structural/functional scans be able to get about 20-30% correlation to these traits.

But do we really want to?

Because once we start filtering for some treat, that filter can be flipped over quite easily. Especially by strongmen in power. 🤔

Ally Aug 10, 2025

@gimulnautti @adam @wdlindsy if we get rid of the psychopaths, there will be no strongmen in power to be afraid of

hex Aug 10, 2025

@InfoDumpTruck @gimulnautti @adam @wdlindsy this assumes that those traits can't change.

https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_piff_does_money_make_you_mean

Social psychology indicates that the very power structure itself informs behavior, rather than the other way around. Psychopathy can be the result of the structure rather than the cause of a behavior.

If we focus on building systems that eliminate involuntary hierarchy, then we get rid of the structure that elicits authoritarian behavior *and also* minimize the impact of people who might manifest such behaviors naturally.

Paul Piff: Does money make you mean?

TED

Toni Aittoniemi Aug 10, 2025

@Hex @InfoDumpTruck @adam @wdlindsy Changing those traits might be possible, but perhaps not within reasonable timeframes.

They aren’t inheritable per se, but for some characteristics that lead to social dominance behaviour, physical dimensions and connectivity of brain regions explains about 1/4.

This treat is actually particularly well explained among personality traits by neurophysiology, most barely correlate at all.

Toni Aittoniemi Aug 10, 2025

@Hex @InfoDumpTruck @adam @wdlindsy Among studies that I’m familiar with, perhaps most famous one being the Dunedain Study, it was suggested that social dominance behaviours appeared to have a certain level of inherent tendency that combined with a developmental trigger mechanism.

The funny anecdote being, one of the professors themselves discovering they were a psychopath while in the process of conducting the analysis of the study. 🙂

hex Aug 10, 2025

@gimulnautti @InfoDumpTruck @adam @wdlindsy the previous post suggested brain scans to identify and omit people whose brain structure indicates a predilection towards psychopathy. Soy concern is less one of "can we fix people who' brain structures correlate with social dominance behavior" and more "can systems elicit social dominance behavior in otherwise neurotypical people."

If the system is toxic, then neurotypicals will act in accordance with the system... Meaning that brain scans would be turned into a weapon to reinforce the system. Most Nazis were neurotypical.

Toni Aittoniemi Aug 10, 2025

@Hex @InfoDumpTruck @adam @wdlindsy Yes. That was my point in the very first instance I brought it up.

However, the knowledge of a systematic neurophysiological component cannot either be ignored.

The challenge is ultimately more in the value system. We must be able to treat psychopathy as valuable first, to be able to shape and mold it into beneficial behaviours.

That’s how we mold future society into not bringing out the toxic effects.

hex Aug 10, 2025

@gimulnautti @InfoDumpTruck @adam @wdlindsy ah, ok, thanks for the depth. :)

Ally Aug 10, 2025

@gimulnautti @Hex @adam @wdlindsy psychopathy is the opposite of valuable. Its social cancer. Psychopaths are intra-species predators.

Toni Aittoniemi Aug 10, 2025

@InfoDumpTruck @Hex @adam @wdlindsy This is false.

Psychopathy is a component of many valuable traits.

Many successfull surgeons are psychopathic. It's common in emergency workers. Firefighters as well.

Incapacity for empathy can at times help in surviving great hardship, because it provides immunity from sadness and shock as a side-effect.

It has been preserved by evolution. I would not fight against evolution. It's stupid to fight against evolution.

Don't fall for simple us vs them games.

Ally Aug 10, 2025

@gimulnautti @Hex @adam @wdlindsy I'm not "falling" for anything. Just because it happens to be convenient in very specific instances that we could find other solutions for doesn't make it valuable. Every other consequence of psychopathy is awful. Stop defending the "value" of a condition that is responsible for most of the worlds needless suffering. Also the fact that surgeons are psychopaths is a PROBLEM. It leads to so much malpractice.

Ally Aug 10, 2025

@gimulnautti @Hex @adam @wdlindsy behaviors can be modified to a degree through social engineering, but as long as they are fundamentally, neurologically different, it's irrelevant, because they will always be exclusively self-serving. and while the antisocial behaviors may be more subtle in some cases, they are still incapable of human connection and will screw anyone over when they have an excuse.

Ally Aug 10, 2025

@gimulnautti @Hex @adam @wdlindsy psychopathy is inheritable. I was raised in a family of psychopaths. It was obvious from birth for many of them. The rest were more subtle about it, and they did even more damage because they were trusted to a degree.

Ally Aug 10, 2025

@Hex @gimulnautti @adam @wdlindsy it informs behavior to a degree, but certain people don't need the system to "inform" them how to be evil, and certain people will never be that evil no matter how much the system promotes it, with the exception of extreme brainwashing/brain damage and/or threats to their own lives, and that's my point. Not all people with bad behaviors are psychopaths, but all psychopaths have bad behavior that will escalate as far as their environment allows for

Toni Aittoniemi Aug 10, 2025

@InfoDumpTruck @adam @wdlindsy But that’s just eugenics again. We don’t know what traits are inherently good for future events. Philosophers have warned against this for centuries.

Ally Aug 10, 2025

@gimulnautti @adam @wdlindsy I don't care what you call my stance on it, psychopathy is never a good thing and cannot be integrated into society. Its defining feature is antisocial, its lacking humanity.

William Hamilton Aug 10, 2025

@adam @wdlindsy
“I am proud to say that I’ve written another insane admiral. They must put something in the water at Federation Headquarters.”
— Ronald D. Moore