Online and Unkind: Examining the Personality Correlates of Online Political Incivility

Many forms of online political incivility threaten democratic norms, contribute to polarization, and are often directed at women and racial minorities. Recent research shows that online political incivility may come from a minority of users that are just as hostile offline as they are online, meaning that individual differences in personality traits may be an important predictor of online political incivility. Drawing upon a large sample of adults living in Canada (N = 1725), we examined the association between personality traits and online political incivility using robust measures of psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and the general traits of the HEXACO. While controlling for a variety of sociodemographic and political variables, we found that people who score higher in honesty-humility, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, as well as the planfulness facet of Machiavellianism, are less likely to report engagement in online political incivility. People who score higher in extraversion, several facets of psychopathy, grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, and antagonistic Machiavellianism, by contrast, are more likely to report engagement in online political incivility. In general, the personality traits that predict offline aggression and antisocial behaviour tend to be the same traits that predict self-reports of vulgarity, stereotyping, and threats in online political discussions. Interventions to reduce online incivility may benefit from considering the dispositional tendencies of uncivil users.