10. The Dark Triad and Popular Culture

Question 1

What is the dark triad?

Answer 1

• narcissism: lack of empathy, grandiose sense of self
• psychopathy: impulsivity, callousness (disregard for others)
• Machiavellianism: ends justify the means

Question 2

Outline Machiavellianism

Answer 2

• Cynical approach to life (belief that other people are as selfish as you are)
• Ends justify means
• Amoral and manipulative
• Maximising self-interest via deception and disregard for others
• strategic, calculative, manipulative

Question 3

Outline the personality dimension of Machiavellianism

Answer 3

Cognition: others are weak, stupid, exploitable, manipulative/bad
Affect: emotionally detached, low affective empathy
Motivation: outcome driven (ends justify the means), low moral commitment
Behaviour: exploitative and deceptive

Question 4

What are the problems in studying the personality trait of Machiavellianism?

Answer 4

Self-report is unhelpful - if Mach’s have no reason to tell people the truth, and are manipulative, then self-report won’t be suitable.

Question 5

Outline the idea of Mach’s ‘cool syndrome’

Answer 5

• decisions are not influenced by emotions; superior impulse control (emotional detachment)
• low affective empathy

Question 6

What is the relation between the dark triad traits?

Answer 6

• Males > Females on all Dark triad traits
• they all positively correlate, but they cannot be considered equivalent traits
• negative relation between agreeableness and dark triad traits

Question 7

What did Furnham’s 10 year review find?

Answer 7

All DT correlations positive & significant

Question 8

Is there a common core of the Dark Triad?

Answer 8

Common elements: socially malevolent charact with behaviour tendencies toward self-promotion, emotional coldness, duplicity and aggressiveness

Question 9

What are the D3 differences? (Jones and Paulhus)

Answer 9

Narcissim: major motivation is ego-reinforcement
Machs/Psychopaths: major motivation is instrumental / material game
Machs: long term focus (strategic calculation)
Psychopaths: short term focus (impulsive)

Question 10

What is the problem with the correlations between Dark Triad traits?

Answer 10

Spurious correlation between the D3 and outcome variables

To overcome this: control for covariances of D3 to see what each trait uniquely predicts

Question 11

All 3 traits correlate with alcohol consumption, the only variable that predicts uniquely alcohol consumption is

Answer 11

psychopathy

Question 12

Issues with the Dirty Dozen

Answer 12

12 item self-report test with high face validity

Question 13

What should you use instead of the Dirty Dozen?

Answer 13

Short Dark Triad - 27 likert items

Mach: make sure your plans benefit yourself, not others
Narcissism: i know that i am special because everyone keeps telling me so
Psychopathy: people who mess with me always regret it

Question 14

What are some criticisms of D3 research?

Answer 14

Muris et al meta analysis
- most is cross sectional and self-report
- measurements are too simplistic
- most of them are done within WEIRD samples

Question 15

What does D3 look like around the world, and what are the country level variables?

Answer 15

Jonason et al (2020) got D3 data from 49 countries:
- economic status (standards of living)
- social relations (e.g. gender equality)
- political orientations (e.g. democracy)
- cultural values (e.g. autonomy)

• the more developed and corrupt the country, the more narcissism
• the less democratic and peaceful, the more narcissism

Machiavellianism is associated with the reverese; and psychopathy had no clear pattern

Question 16

What’s the explanation for narcissism?

Answer 16

• narcissism linked to hypercompetitiveness
  –> scarcity hypothesis (narcissism = having a certain advantage in situations with scarce resources)

Question 17

Outline the patterns of the dark triad and deception

Answer 17

Cheater strategy: using deception in competition and marketing

Lies: psychopaths / machs
Lies for no reason: psychopaths
White lies: machs
Lies for self gain: narcissists
Self-reported skill at lying: narcissists

In the mating context, the emotional state for all these dark triad traits is they enjoy telling lies. But when you control for each of the variables, its Machiavellinaism which creates this

Question 18

D3 and virtuous victimhood

Answer 18

• wolf in sheep’s clothing
• virtue signalling: conspicuously signalling that they are a virtuous person
• D3 traits are associated with virtuous victimhood (to deceive people and get resources)

In this game: people with higher virtuous victimhood would cheat

Question 19

What is the life history theory account for the Dark 3?

Answer 19

Life history theory: different resource strategies for survival and reproduction

Slow life strategy: long term mating (bigger animals, invest in partners)
Fast life strategy: short term mating (smaller animals, act more impulsively, lower cooperation)

Findings indicate that the D3 have a fast life strategy
- preference for short term mating (matches M >F)

Jonason et al:
- psychopathy and (to a lesser extent) machiavellianism were related to faster life history strategies
- narcissism was related to slower life strategies

Question 20

Is the D3 attractive?

Answer 20

• people are attracted to power
• we love anti-heroes (who typically possess dark personality traits)
• d3 are opportunistic, casual and exploitative in matign contexts (this could be an evolved male adaptation for short term mating)
• evolutionary: women attracted to bad boys due to perceived masculinity (particularly when women are ovulating)
• narcissism was judged as more attractive

Question 21

What were the results of the speed dating study (Jauk et al 2016)

Answer 21

• Women had a higher preference for people high in narcissism and psychopathy (these come across as charming)

Question 22

What were the results for the facial attractivness study

Answer 22

• Women don’t prefer D3 faces
• people higher in psychopathy and narcissism tend to be rated more masculine
• tendency for women to prefer masculine faces

BUT
- tend to prefer narcissistic faces (narcissism is realted to higher testosterone)
- reduced preferences for psychopathy and mach faces

Question 23

Dark Tetrad?

Answer 23

Everyday sadism: disposition to enjoy cruelty and suffering (“i enjoy hurting people”)

Spitefulness: “I would be willing to take a punch if it meant that someone I did not like would receive two punches”

Question 24

Sadism and the Dark Triad

Answer 24

Mach, psych, narc, are correlated with vicarious sadism
- but is it possible sadism is a distinct dimension
- these correlations were not high enough to suggest it should be reduced to the same factor