Russians’ Attitude towards the Death Penalty: The Role of Personal and Socio-Psychological Characteristics

The work is aimed at studying the connection between personality traits, political attitudes and social beliefs with the attitude of Russians towards the death penalty. The results of theoretical analysis and empirical research obtained from a sample of 450 people (49% men), aged from 18 to 74 (M=33.3; SD=13.7) are presented. Methods used: an ultra-short version of the Big Five questionnaire (BFI-2-XS), a short version of the “Dark Tetrad” questionnaire, a short version of the J. Duckitt technique adapted by D.S. Grigorev, as well as a number of questions on socio-demographic data. The results obtained show that the attitude towards the death penalty is associated with the personality trait “Openness”, the political attitudes “Authoritarian aggression” and “Authoritarian submission” and the social belief “Belief in a dangerous world”, but is not associated with the traits of the dark tetrad Machiavellianism, Narcissism, Psychopathy and Sadism. The mediation study showed that right-wing authoritarianism partially mediates the relationship between belief in a dangerous world and attitudes toward the death penalty.

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