European Journal of Political Research
Sign a petition or storm the parliament? Aversive personality differentiates normative vs. nonnormative political activism
2026-07-13
Past research on political activism has largely emphasized the role of intra personal developments. One prominent example is the so-called ‘conveyor belt’ metaphor, suggesting that political activism typically begins with normative political activism (NPA) – such as signing petitions – but can eventually escalate into nonnormative political activism (NNPA), eg violent protests. However, theoretical developments in the realm of socially and/or ethically aversive personality strongly emphasize the role of inter personal differences, ie that different individuals, in general, are inclined toward NPA vs. NNPA. We herein test this conjecture and investigate whether the socially aversive personality can dissociate the tendency for different individuals to engage in NPA or NNPA. To do so, we conducted four studies (total N = 4,737) across two languages (English and German), administering a measure of the dark core of personality (D) and two different measures of NPA vs. NNPA, respectively. Results consistently indicated that individuals higher in D were more inclined toward NNPA and concurrently less inclined toward NPA – and vice versa for those low in D. Stated simply, aversive personality dissociates between NPA and NNPA, showing that different individuals are more likely to engage in one vs. the other. Thus, the present work adds to the growing evidence signifying the importance of personality for political behavior, in particular by offering a single personality trait which can differentiate the tendency to engage in NPA vs. NNPA.