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Certain personality features have been found to be linked to attitudes about war.

Conspiracy theorists are less likely to be pro-war.

Authority submission predicts a tendency to be more in favor of military conflict.

As the Iran military conflict escalates, the debate around the war appears focused on issues such as legal or moral justifications. Some remain more focused on whether such combat can be effective in achieving stated goals.

However, a recent study has suggested that beyond apparent politics, it could be that it is indeed psychology that really explains whether people adopt a pro- or anti-war stance.

The study involved a large sample of over one thousand of the U.K. population, uncovering intriguing links between personality features and level of support for war.

Entitled "Authoritarianism and the Psychology of War: Exploring Personality Traits in the Legitimation of Military Conflict," the investigation found, like previous research, that men were significantly more likely to support military conflict compared to women, and so were older people compared to younger, while those with more right‐leaning political views were also more likely to back warfare.

Childhood and Social Dominance and Attitudes Toward War

An intriguing finding emerged with a link between early life experiences apparently shaping adult attitudes toward aggression.

Childhood maltreatment was measured using questions in the study assessing emotional and physical abuse (e.g., “people in my family said hurtful or insulting things to me” and “I was hit so badly that I had bruises or scratches”). Childhood harm was a significant predictor of pro-war attitudes, suggesting that early‐life adversity contributes to later war‐support.

A personality factor referred to as "social dominance orientation," or SDO, also significantly predicted war support.

Social dominance orientation refers to your preference for "hierarchical world views," and these are associated with militaristic attitudes. SDO is about your degree of preference for inequality in society.

Those who score low on SDO adopt a more egalitarian ideology that prefers not to divide people into categories, or groups, instead opting for views that concord with sentiments such as the "universal rights of man," or "all humans are God's children."

Low SDO scorers prefer less group inequality. High SDO scorers will tend to agree with the following statements in questionnaires: Winning is more important than how the game is played. Getting ahead by any means necessary. Sometimes war is necessary to put other countries in their place. Inferior groups should stay in their place.

Willingness to Submit to Authority

These researchers also found that a feature of personality referred to as "authoritarian submission" was strongly associated with war support. This refers to those who exhibit high deference to authority and who are submissive to established powers. As a result, they tend to display aggressiveness and hostility towards those deviating from norms endorsed by authority figures.

It would appear that the more people are submissive to authority, the more they become tough on those who deviate from what the authorities prefer.

Authoritarian submission is therefore linked to valuing social conformity and "authoritarian aggression" is the hostility directed at those who appear to threaten the social order.

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Those who score high on authoritarian submission tend to endorse these statements in questionnaires like these: Our country would be great if we did what the authorities tell us to do. It’s important for children to learn to obey authorities. People that criticize the authorities create useless doubts in people’s minds. In contrast, those who score low in authoritarian submission would endorse this kind of statement: People must, always and for whatever reason, have greater freedom to protest against the government.

The psychological theory behind the authoritarian personality type, emphasizes the tendency of highly submissive individuals to align with aggressive state policies, including warfare.

The theory is that authoritarian leaders like Adolf Hitler, who led Nazi Germany into World War II, couldn’t have achieved the power and control they developed over millions of followers, without some psychological feature, such as ‘authoritarian submission’ being present to a degree.

Conspiracy Theories and Attitudes About War

Another intriguing finding from this study, with perhaps direct implications for the "Make America Great Again" followers of President Donald Trump, is the result that those who are more likely to endorse "conspiracy theories" were less likely to be pro-war.

The authors suggest that conspiracy theorists' skepticism toward state and military narratives may actually lead them to oppose war.

It has been suggested by some that the timing of the war coincides with a desire to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein files, and so this finding from this study may be particularly relevant to how support for the war plays out over time amongst Trump’s traditional support base.

Psychopaths, Sadists, Narcissists, and Machiavellians

Another personality feature found to be particularly strongly associated with pro-war attitudes was sadism, which is characterized by enjoyment of cruelty and harm. The authors argued ‘sadism’ becomes a uniquely relevant factor in understanding why some back fighting as a legitimate means of conflict resolution.

Among the other so-called ‘dark’ personality traits, only psychopathy emerged as the other key psychological trait, significantly linked with support for battles. Those who score high on psychopathy exhibit callousness and emotional detachment. But it was sadism and the tendency to derive pleasure from harming others which was the personality characteristic more likely to be linked with war support.

However, the other two classic "dark" personality features, narcissism and Machiavellianism, were found, perhaps surprisingly, not significant, indicating that support for war is not primarily driven by self‐importance or strategic manipulation, but rather by a deeper inclination toward aggression and dominance.

Predicting Personality From Attitudes Toward War

One of the intriguing implications of research such as this is possible speculation over "reverse engineering" the finding. In other words, if you meet people who are strongly pro- or anti-war, it might be possible to deduce, or predict certain aspects of their personality, and even childhood, given the links found by this study.

Another possible implication is that arguing or trying to persuade those who differ from your own viewpoint on the conflict is likely to be relatively fruitless unless you take into account the psychological factors illuminated by this research.

For example, the anti-war lobby might be better served in trying to change the minds of pro-war supporters by deploying a particularly military-looking spokesperson.

Perhaps a senior general in the U.S. military, who may be retired now, but who comes out publicly against the war, should be more persuasive, given the "authoritarian submission" finding above.

But this might be difficult to achieve given the tendency for the military, retired or not, to close ranks during a war.

Either way, this kind of research suggests we may go to war for more deep-rooted psychological reasons than normally admitted in public debate.

Those who successfully persuade the public to support hostilities, or maybe even galvanize popular movements against military conflict, may also be deploying more psychological munitions than political weaponry in the persuasion war.

Authoritarianism and the Psychology of War: Exploring Personality Traits in the Legitimation of Military Conflict Alexander Yendell and David Herbert. Research Institute Social Cohesion, Section Leipzig, Germany. Research Centre Global Dynamics, Leipzig University, Germany. Department of Sociology, University of Bergen, Norway. Politics and Governance 2025 • Volume 13 • Article 10292 https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.10292

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