Citizens in democratic countries have more benevolent traits, fewer malevolent traits, and greater well-being

Our new research has important implications for understanding the development and destruction of democracies.

My colleagues and I are very interested in the nuanced interactions between personality, well-being, and the flourishing of democracies around the world. We just published a big paper in Nature Scientific Reports that PsyPost did a great job covering. Since they did such a comprehensive and accurate review of our findings, I’m going to republish it below. Big shout-out to my colleague Craig Neumann who has really taken the lead on analyzing and writing up this massive database we have been collecting on my website for about the past 5 years.

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From PsyPost:

by Eric W. Dolan

A new study published in Scientific Reports suggests that the type of government a person lives under may be linked to their personality and overall well-being. People residing in more democratic countries reported higher levels of benevolent “light triad” traits, such as kindness and empathy, and lower levels of malevolent “dark triad” traits. These benevolent traits were also associated with greater life satisfaction.

The dark triad refers to a group of three personality traits that are socially aversive in nature: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. These traits are typically characterized by manipulation, selfishness, lack of empathy, and a disregard for others. People who score high on these traits are more likely to exploit others for personal gain, seek admiration without genuine connection, and exhibit emotional coldness or impulsivity. While these traits exist on a spectrum and do not necessarily indicate clinical disorders, they are associated with behaviors that can undermine trust and cooperation in society.

In contrast, the light triad includes traits that reflect a more prosocial and affiliative orientation toward others: Kantianism, humanism, and faith in humanity. Individuals high in these traits tend to treat others as ends in themselves (rather than means to an end), believe in the basic goodness of people, and value the dignity and worth of every individual. The light triad is not simply the opposite of the dark triad; while they are negatively correlated, they capture unique aspects of interpersonal behavior and moral orientation. People with high light triad traits are more likely to engage in empathy, altruism, and cooperative behavior.

The researchers were motivated to conduct this study in light of growing concern about global democratic backsliding and the rise of authoritarian regimes. While previous studies have explored the personalities of political leaders, there has been less attention paid to how ordinary citizens’ traits might relate to the type of government they live under. The researchers wanted to test whether the psychological makeup of a population—particularly in terms of benevolent versus malevolent traits—could be associated with national democratic status.

“There has been a decline in democracy, due to the rise in authoritarian governments, with specific autocrats cited as the main culprits. However, new research shows that characteristics of citizens also play a role in the status of a democracy,” said study author Craig Neumann, a Regents Professor of Psychology at the University of North Texas.

“Relatedly, the nature of the place where people live can influence their personality. In our previous work, we found that persons across the globe with benevolent (‘light’) traits are much happier and have a positive self-image, compared to those with malevolent (‘dark’) traits who show an unhealthy psychological profile, and do not get ahead despite a tendency to cheat and manipulate others for their own gain.”

“In that same research, we found that U.S. Senators with benevolent traits co-sponsor more legislation but those with malevolent traits have longer tenures. So, putting all these pieces of information together led us to conduct a rigorous study that could quantify the links between citizens’ personality and the types of governments they live in, in their respective countries.”

To investigate how government type relates to citizens’ personality traits and well-being, the researchers conducted a large-scale, web-based study using self-report data from people around the world. The sample was drawn from visitors to a website offering personality assessments (https://scottbarrykaufman.com/lighttriadscale/). In total, 247,981 participants from 75 countries completed the survey, which included measures of personality, well-being, religious/spiritual experience, and demographic information such as age, gender, education, income, and country of residence.

Participants completed two short personality inventories: the Dirty Dozen and the Light Triad Scale. The Dirty Dozen is a validated 12-item questionnaire that assesses Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. The Light Triad Scale is another 12-item measure that captures three affiliative traits: Humanism (valuing the dignity and worth of others), Faith in Humanity (believing in people’s basic goodness), and Kantianism (treating people as ends in themselves). Responses to these items were scored on a 5-point scale ranging from strong disagreement to strong agreement.

o link personality traits with political environments, the researchers classified each participant’s country using two widely respected indices: the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index and the Freedom House Democracy Score. The former divides countries into four categories: autocratic, hybrid, flawed democracy, and full democracy. The latter uses a simpler three-part classification: Not Free, Partly Free, and Free. These categories were matched with participant responses to explore whether personality traits systematically varied across government types.

The researchers found that as the level of democracy increased—from autocratic to full democracy—citizens reported higher levels of benevolent traits and lower levels of malevolent traits. For example, individuals in full democracies scored highest on measures like Humanism and Faith in Humanity, while those in autocratic countries scored higher on traits like Machiavellianism and psychopathy.

“Citizens living in countries with more democratic practices have positive views and are more trusting of others and have higher well-being,” Neumann told PsyPost. “Simply put, fully democratic societies have citizens who get along better with their fellow citizens and by showing benevolence toward other people they end up feeling better themselves, have higher well-being, and democratic society functions better.”

“The collaborative nature of a full democracy is a win-win situation for everyone. This all makes sense of course, given we are a social species, and humans have attained great things through cooperation. So, given the backslide toward autocracy, we should ask ourselves, what factors such as social media or political leaders have led us to distrust one another, and whether such social disharmony is really what we want to have in our society?”

Scott Barry Kaufman, a co-author of the study, added: “the dark triad gets a lot of play but we really shouldn’t discount the fact that a lot of people are light triad and that democracies allow light triad traits to flourish.”

These patterns remained consistent even after controlling for demographic factors such as age, education, and income. The researchers also verified that the findings held when certain countries with very large samples (like the United States and Brazil) were excluded, as well as when the sample was randomly reduced to different proportions. Regardless of these adjustments, the pattern persisted: democracy was associated with greater benevolence and reduced malevolence.

In a follow-up analysis, the researchers examined how these traits related to well-being. Participants were asked to rate their satisfaction with life and with their job. The researchers found that benevolent traits were strongly associated with greater life satisfaction, whereas malevolent traits were weakly but negatively associated with well-being. The level of democracy in a person’s country also predicted life satisfaction, both directly and indirectly through its association with personality. That is, democratic conditions seemed to foster personality traits that in turn promoted psychological well-being.

“The converse of our positive findings is that with democratic backsliding, there is less freedom of course, citizens may become more malevolent toward others, which may lead to worse societal conditions, and potentially a push for autocrats to claim more power, and worsen the nature of everyday living for everyone; with only a downward spiral ahead if no opportunities to revive democratic practices,” Neumann said.

To test whether these findings were unique to well-being, the researchers also included questions about religious and spiritual experiences. These items asked participants to rate how religious they considered themselves and whether they had experienced a sense of connection to something larger than themselves. While personality traits were weakly associated with these experiences, the links were notably weaker than those observed for well-being. This provided additional evidence that benevolent personality traits are particularly relevant to life satisfaction rather than spiritual identity.

The researchers also tested whether a country’s level of democracy was related to how often its citizens reported religious or spiritual experiences. Interestingly, the democracy score was negatively associated with spiritual and religious experience. That is, people in more democratic countries reported slightly fewer spiritual experiences on average than those in less democratic countries.

“A big surprise was that as democracy declines citizens appear to seek more spiritual, religious experiences, suggesting that this may be a viable coping strategy when daily life is full of undemocratic strife,” Neumann said.

Although the study’s findings were robust across multiple analyses and demographic controls, the authors acknowledged some limitations. First, the sample was a convenience sample—participants were self-selected individuals who visited a personality testing website, which may not represent the broader population of their respective countries.

Another key limitation is that the data were cross-sectional, meaning they capture a single point in time. This prevents researchers from drawing firm conclusions about causality. It’s unclear whether living in a democracy promotes benevolent traits, whether benevolent citizens build and sustain democracies, or whether both processes influence each other in a feedback loop. While other research suggests that personality can be shaped by societal conditions—and that citizen values can drive political change—this study alone cannot determine the direction of influence.

Looking ahead, the researchers plan to examine more worldwide data to explore how citizens’ personalities relate to their broader cultural and political environments. They hope to uncover more about how personality traits shape—and are shaped by—the societies in which people live.

The study, “Citizens in democratic countries have more benevolent traits, fewer malevolent traits, and greater well-being,” was authored by Craig S. Neumann, Scott Barry Kaufman, and Leanne ten Brinke.