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

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Abstract

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.

General Information

Keywords: attitude towards the death penalty, right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, belief in a dangerous world, five-factor model of personality, dark tetrad, polarization

Journal rubric: Methodological Problems of Legal Psychology

Article type: scientific article

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/psylaw.2024140302

Funding. M.A. Gagarina and A. N. Nevryuev carried out the research at the expense of the Russian Science Foundation grant No. 23-18-00422, https://rscf.ru/project/23-18-00422/

Received: 09.04.2024

Accepted:

For citation: Gagarina M.A., Solovova N.A., Nevryuev A.N. Russians’ Attitude towards the Death Penalty: The Role of Personal and Socio-Psychological Characteristics [Elektronnyi resurs]. Psikhologiya i pravo = Psychology and Law, 2024. Vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 13–25. DOI: 10.17759/psylaw.2024140302. (In Russ., аbstr. in Engl.)

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Information About the Authors

Maria A. Gagarina, Doctor of Psychology, Docent, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology and Human Capital Development, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7812-7875, e-mail: mgagarina224@gmail.com

Nadezhda A. Solovova, PhD in Psychology, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology and Human Capital Development, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1112-0759, e-mail: solovovana@gmail.com

Andrey N. Nevryuev, Senior Lecturer, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, Senior Lecturer, Department of General Psychology, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8640-9717, e-mail: annevryuev@fa.ru

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