Reviewing Gaslighting within the Context of Sociodemographic Factors and Personality Inclinations

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to conduct a traditional review of studies
examining the relationship between “gaslighting”, a type of emotional manipulation in
romantic relationships, and demographic factors and personality traits. Key words were
determined as (gaslighting) AND (personality) AND (“romantic relations” OR “intimate
partnership”); (gaslighting) AND (kişilik) AND (“romantik ilişkiler” OR “yakın
ilişkiler”) and research published between 2000-2023 were scaned in “Science Direct”,
“Google Scholar”, “Medline”, “PubMed”, “YÖK Thesis Center” and “Web of Science”
databases. As a result of the scanning, a total of 15 studies were included in this review. It
was recommended that more research is needed to be conducted on this topic in the future
with respect to the findings regarding sociodemographic characteristics. Furthermore, it
was thought that the power-based characteristics socially attributed to gender stereotypes
might be more closely related to both the perpetration and victimization of gaslighting
rather than the actual gender of perpetrators and victims. This possibility was indirectly
compatible with the limited research findings on the relationship between power balance
and gaslighting in the relations. Moreover, it was observed that studies in the literature
examining the relationship between personality traits and gaslighting behavior focused
on different personality traits from each other, except the ones explored the Dark Triad/
Tetrad features. It was thought that it would be beneficial to conduct different studies in the
future, focusing on personality traits that were explored in the mentioned limited number
of studies and those that have not yet been studied but may be related to gaslighting,
in order to provide a more precise picture of the personality tendencies-gaslighting
relationship.