Lecture 9 - The Dark Personality

Question 1

What is the Dark Triad

Answer 1

Psychopathy
Machiavellianism
Narcissism

Question 2

What is Psychopathy

Answer 2

• Type of behaviour
  -Characterised by being prolonged and enduring
• Typically associated with confidence and ‘in your face’ attributes

eg Callousness, Impulsivity, Enduring Antisocial & Bold Behaviour

Question 3

What was psychopathy considered with

Answer 3

• Initially considered within clinical populations.
• Now considered within subclinical views
  -psychopathy is not always related to poor mental health or mental illness

subclinical = general population (NOT clinical)

Question 4

What is Machiavellianism

Answer 4

• Manipulative
• Exploitative
• Calculating
• Amoral

all for personal gain

Question 5

What is Machiavellianism considered with

Answer 5

• Initially never considered within clinical populations
• Contradictory findings

Question 6

How is Machiavellianism considered

Answer 6

• Machiavellianism actually linked with less mental health issues (Bianchi & Mirkovic, 2020),
• Machiavellianism linked with Delusional Disorder (Brüne et al., 2010)

Contradictory Findings

Question 7

What is Narcissism

Answer 7

Pursuing ego gratification,
vanity, sense of superiority.

Question 8

What is Narcissism considered with

Answer 8

Initially linked with social aversive personality w/in clinical population
* doesn’t capture range of narcissistic behaviours

Distinction between clinical and subclinical is unclear (Cain et al., 2008).

unclear where narcissism lies in people w/ MH issues

Question 9

what is the correlation between the 3 traits

Paulhaus & Williams (2002)

Answer 9

Correlation Coefficient between Psychopathy & Narcissism is stronger than Correlation Coefficients between other two traits

Question 10

What is the Dirty Dozen Scale

Jonason & Webster (2010)

Answer 10

• Self-Report Quennaire
• Tests robustness of Dark Triad
• If traits are truly correlated or not

Question 11

Obvious flaw of Dirty Dozen

Answer 11

Relies on self-report

self awareness +
social desirability

Self-report is dumb

Question 12

What are flaws of the Dirty Dozen Scale

Answer 12

• Narcissism items have weaker loadings on scale (Kajonius et al., 2015)
• In non-W.E.I.R.D populations, narcissism presents as much weaker factor (Rogoza et al., 2020)
  -especially in East Asian cultures where humility is valued (Daiku et al., 2021)
• When using national samples, scale is stronger than when using global samples (Lingán-Huamán et al., 2023)
• Global samples show overlaps between Psychopathy & Machiavellianism (Postigo et al., 2024) (multi-collinearity)

multi-collinearity means they might just be the same thing

Question 13

What the bombaclaat is the dark dyad

Rogoza & Cieciuch (2020)

Answer 13

• Psychopathy & Machiavellianism are more closely aligned, according to the theory
• Narcissism isn’t that linked with impulsivity and risk-taking, whilst the other two are (Glenn &
  Sellbom, 2015)

Question 14

What is the Dark Tetrad

Answer 14

Psychopathy & Machiavellianism are also closely related to Risktaking (Visser et al., 2014) & Sadism (Buckels et al., 2014)

Question 15

What is the Light Triad

Answer 15

Humanism
Kantianism
Faith in Humanity

Question 16

What is Humanism in 5 words

Answer 16

Empathic, curious, resilient,
open-minded, altruistic

Question 17

What is Humanism considered with

Answer 17

• Valuing the dignity & worth within each indiv
• Considering groups as heterogenous & varied
• Viewing the world as multi-layered & diverse (willing to look at the “grey”)

(Buhler, 1971; Schneider et al., 2014; Smith, 1982)

Question 18

What is Kantianism in 4 words

Answer 18

Integrity, duty-orientated, rational, respectful

Question 19

What is Kantianism in more detail

Answer 19

• Treating people as means to themselves rather than means to an end
• Prioritising duty over emotions
• Actions depend on moral & universal law
• Actions are not based upon the consequences but what is right

(Frierson, 2014; Levin, 2017; Teo, 2006)

Question 20

What is Faith in Humanity in 3 words

Answer 20

Optimistic, compassionate,
trustworthy

Question 21

What is Faith in Humanity in more detail

Answer 21

• The belief that the good in people outweighs the bad
• Giving people the benefit of the doubt in difficult situations
• Basing decisions/perceptions upon positive
  presumptions of a favourable light

(Preston-Roeder, 2013; Tweed et al., 2021; Wautischer et al., 2012)

Question 22

What are the correlations between traits within the light triad

Kaufman et al (2019)

Answer 22

• The correlation coefficients for the Light Triad are higher than that of the Dark Triad in Paulhus & Williams (2002).
• The correlation between Humanism and Faith in Humanity is much higher than the others

Question 23

How are the light triad and dark tetrad related to each other

Lukić & Źivanović (2021)

Answer 23

• Light Triad and Dark Tetrad traits are correlated and predict each other
• Sadism is the strongest predictor of faith in: humanity (-.21), humanism (-.18), kantianism (-.11)

Question 24

How does the Dark Triad relate to the general personality (OCEAN)

Paulhaus & Williams (2002)

Answer 24

• Dark triad is all negatively correlated with Agreeableness & Conscientiousness
• Narcissism relates to some facets of conscientiousness
• Psychopathy relates to facets of conscientiousness

Question 25

How does the Dark Personality link to the general personality (HEXACO) | Hodson et al (2018)

Answer 25

Dark triad has a -.95 correlation with honesty-humility | bro that is insane ## Footnote An argument could be made that the dark triad being a concept is reduntant since it's already covered in the HEXACO model

Question 26

How can the dark personality apply to the real world | Spurk et al (2016)

Answer 26

Narcissim is correlated with higher salary Machiavellianism is correlated with being in a leadership position & career satisfaction

Question 27

What is a disadvantage to the findings of real world applications of the dark triad | Ng et al (2005)

Answer 27

Agreeableness tends to also moderately relate to career success Not necessarily dark personality traits but just the general personality traits narcissism & machiavellianism happens to be correlated with

Question 28

How can the Light Personality be applied in real world settings | Johar et al (2022)

Answer 28

* Humanism predicts team effectiveness * Faith in humanity predicts team effectiveness * Team effectiveness is important for successful leadership (Duygulu & Ciraklar, 2008) * Leaders with strong team support last longer (Casey, 2016)

Question 29

How does the dark personality link to crime | Wright et al (2017)

Answer 29

Those high in psychopathy are more likely to have confrontations with the justice system, compared to Machiavellians and narcissists especially where self-control is low (impulsive, risky, low anger management)!

Question 30

What is a weakness of the dark personality application to crime | Crysel et al (2013)

Answer 30

* Dark Triad correlates with impulsivity & sensation seeking (r=.34) * Those who rate highly on the Dark Triad are more likely to engage with risky behaviours in general (not just illegal behaviours)

Question 31

What is temporal discounting

Answer 31

Higher scores indicate individual focuses more on the here-and-now, rather than considering the future outcomes

Question 32

How does the dark triad link to temporal discounting

Answer 32

Narcissism leads to higher temporal discounting, even more so when their ego is threatened

Question 33

How does the dark triad link to education | Kaufman et al (2019)

Answer 33

Psychopathy predicts cheating * College through to Bachelor’s degree shows higher Dark Triad scores * Decreases towards more advanced degrees

Question 34

What is a weakness of the dark triad's link to education

Answer 34

Psychopathy link to cheating mediated by * lower moral inhibition * lower fear of punishment * higher unrestrained agency