By Dr. Ken Broda Bahm:
During the current coronavirus pandemic, there have been individual differences in the degree of compliance with the social restrictions coming down from city mayors and state governors. As I have written, some of the support or opposition for “Stay-at-Home” orders varies based on politics. But some of it also comes down to personality. Researchers from Copenhagen (Zettler, Schild, Lilleholt & Böhm, 2020) recently released a preprint article focused on exploratory research conducted last month showing that compliance differs based on three factors. The first two are predictable: age (older adults follow the precautions) and emotionality (those prone to fear or empathy follow the precautions). But the third predictor is something that is ominously called “The Dark Factor” of personality, and it is a factor that should be understood by those who want to understand personality and persuasion.
The Dark Factor of personality is an emerging concept in academic research, and it focuses on predictors of what we would consider anti-social behavior: selfishness at the low end or psychopathy at the extreme end. Helpfully explained on a website created by the main authors, the construct refers to “The tendency to ruthlessly pursue one’s own interests, even when this harms others” or, more generally, “to maximize one’s individual utility — disregarding, accepting, or malevolently provoking disutility for others.” It is accompanied by a set of beliefs that serve to justify that disposition. The attitude predicts whether a person will be open to goals or values outside of themselves, and whether they can be motivated to protect the community or just themselves. In other words, it has a bearing on how they view legal cases.
The Research: The ‘Dark Factor’ Drives Noncompliance
The idea of a Dark Factor, or personality, is an evolution of an earlier idea you may have heard of: The “Dark Triad” is the idea of three personality traits that predict the worst forms of anti-social behavior: narcissism (a sense of entitlement, dominance, and ego-gratification); machiavellianism (a self-interested focus on using other people as a means to an end); and psychopathy (callousness and impulsivity).
Looking beyond that trio, researchers have more recently theorized that there is a common factor underlying all of these — the Dark Factor, or simply “D” — that more effectively predicts anti-social behavior. They defined it as a “Basic disposition that gives rise to specific personality traits related to antagonistic, malevolent, or socially aversive behavior” (Moshagen, Zettler & Hilbig, 2019). They also found and validated a way to measure it. Using a 70-question scale (with shorter versions that include 35 or 16 questions), it involves agree/disagree scale items like: “My own pleasure is all that matters,” “It is hard to get ahead without cutting corners here and there,” and “People who get mistreated have usually done something to bring it on themselves.”
The researchers saw the current pandemic and its associated restrictions as an ideal real-life laboratory to test people’s ability to put collective gain ahead of their own interests. Using a sample of 799 Danish adults, they looked at the determinants of compliance with COVID-19 social restrictions. As noted, they found three significant relationships:
- Age: Older people (who are more at risk) are more likely to comply.
- Emotionality: People who are more prone to anxiety and fear, and/or feel more empathic toward others, are more likely to comply.
- Dark Factor: People with anti-social personality traits are less likely to comply.
The Implications: Appeal to the Dark and the Light
Because this concept is just emerging and being tested, I am not seeing current estimates of the proportion of the population that is high in the Dark Factors. It is also useful to think of it as a spectrum. Yes, there are certainly abject psychopaths among us, but there are also individuals with more subtle tendencies to focus on self-interest and to treat others as tools or obstacles. There are also situations — like a global pandemic — that might bring out higher levels of self-interest in all of us.
So what does this mean for your case? Knowing that your case could depend on jurors having a higher or lower level of community-motivation or altruism, it may help to keep this Dark Factor in mind during jury selection. Some scale questions may be included in voir dire, or you could ask versions that are applicable to your case. For example, “Who believes that a business cannot succeed without cutting corners here or there?” Or, “Who agrees that if someone has been injured using a product, then usually they have done something to bring it on themselves?” Beyond the specific question responses, you may simply get a read on someone as you observe them and hear them speak.
When it comes to persuasion, there is also likelihood that you will need to speak to the motivations of at least a few ‘Dark Factor’ jurors on your panel. In the past, I have counseled against presuming that your jury is altruistic and simply wanting to “do justice” for you. For that reason, it helps to think about what would serve as a personal motivator for them and to ask, “What would make different kinds of jurors want my side to win in this litigation?” While those on the lighter side might appreciate an appeal to community values, those closer to the dark side would need to hear some form of implicit self-interest appeal.
One example of a litigation approach that arguably addresses Dark Factor jurors might be the Reptile approach of trying plaintiffs’ cases by framing defendant’s behavior as a personally relevant threat. By targeting the danger posed by the defendant, the aim is to appeal to the self-interest of a juror who might have trouble identifying with the concerns of a stranger, the plaintiff.
So, on different points of the spectrum, there are ways of speaking to those who are more community-focused and those who are more self-centered, including those high in the Dark Factor of personality. Now, if we can just get them to stay home for the next few weeks.
______
Other Posts on Personality:
- Look Out for the Authoritarian Personality
- Teach Your Jury ‘Epistemic Vigilance’
- See the Threads of Conspiracy Thinking