10. The Dark Triad and Popular Culture Flashcards
What is the dark triad?
- narcissism: lack of empathy, grandiose sense of self
- psychopathy: impulsivity, callousness (disregard for others)
- Machiavellianism: ends justify the means
Outline Machiavellianism
- 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
Outline the personality dimension of Machiavellianism
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
What are the problems in studying the personality trait of Machiavellianism?
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.
Outline the idea of Mach’s ‘cool syndrome’
- decisions are not influenced by emotions; superior impulse control (emotional detachment)
- low affective empathy
What is the relation between the dark triad traits?
- 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
What did Furnham’s 10 year review find?
All DT correlations positive & significant
Is there a common core of the Dark Triad?
Common elements: socially malevolent charact with behaviour tendencies toward self-promotion, emotional coldness, duplicity and aggressiveness
What are the D3 differences? (Jones and Paulhus)
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)
What is the problem with the correlations between Dark Triad traits?
Spurious correlation between the D3 and outcome variables
To overcome this: control for covariances of D3 to see what each trait uniquely predicts
All 3 traits correlate with alcohol consumption, the only variable that predicts uniquely alcohol consumption is
psychopathy
Issues with the Dirty Dozen
12 item self-report test with high face validity
What should you use instead of the Dirty Dozen?
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
What are some criticisms of D3 research?
Muris et al meta analysis
- most is cross sectional and self-report
- measurements are too simplistic
- most of them are done within WEIRD samples
What does D3 look like around the world, and what are the country level variables?
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
What’s the explanation for narcissism?
- narcissism linked to hypercompetitiveness
–> scarcity hypothesis (narcissism = having a certain advantage in situations with scarce resources)
Outline the patterns of the dark triad and deception
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
D3 and virtuous victimhood
- 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
What is the life history theory account for the Dark 3?
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
Is the D3 attractive?
- 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
What were the results of the speed dating study (Jauk et al 2016)
- Women had a higher preference for people high in narcissism and psychopathy (these come across as charming)
What were the results for the facial attractivness study
- 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
Dark Tetrad?
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”
Sadism and the Dark Triad
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
