Lecture 9 - The Dark Personality Flashcards
What is the Dark Triad
Psychopathy
Machiavellianism
Narcissism
What is Psychopathy
- 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
What was psychopathy considered with
- 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)
What is Machiavellianism
- Manipulative
- Exploitative
- Calculating
- Amoral
all for personal gain
What is Machiavellianism considered with
- Initially never considered within clinical populations
- Contradictory findings
How is Machiavellianism considered
- Machiavellianism actually linked with less mental health issues (Bianchi & Mirkovic, 2020),
- Machiavellianism linked with Delusional Disorder (Brüne et al., 2010)
Contradictory Findings
What is Narcissism
Pursuing ego gratification,
vanity, sense of superiority.
What is Narcissism considered with
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
what is the correlation between the 3 traits
Paulhaus & Williams (2002)
Correlation Coefficient between Psychopathy & Narcissism is stronger than Correlation Coefficients between other two traits
What is the Dirty Dozen Scale
Jonason & Webster (2010)
- Self-Report Quennaire
- Tests robustness of Dark Triad
- If traits are truly correlated or not
Obvious flaw of Dirty Dozen
Relies on self-report
self awareness +
social desirability
Self-report is dumb
What are flaws of the Dirty Dozen Scale
- 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
What the bombaclaat is the dark dyad
Rogoza & Cieciuch (2020)
- 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)
What is the Dark Tetrad
Psychopathy & Machiavellianism are also closely related to Risktaking (Visser et al., 2014) & Sadism (Buckels et al., 2014)
What is the Light Triad
Humanism
Kantianism
Faith in Humanity
What is Humanism in 5 words
Empathic, curious, resilient,
open-minded, altruistic
What is Humanism considered with
- 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)
What is Kantianism in 4 words
Integrity, duty-orientated, rational, respectful
What is Kantianism in more detail
- 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)
What is Faith in Humanity in 3 words
Optimistic, compassionate,
trustworthy
What is Faith in Humanity in more detail
- 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)
What are the correlations between traits within the light triad
Kaufman et al (2019)
- 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
How are the light triad and dark tetrad related to each other
Lukić & Źivanović (2021)
- 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)
How does the Dark Triad relate to the general personality (OCEAN)
Paulhaus & Williams (2002)
- Dark triad is all negatively correlated with Agreeableness & Conscientiousness
- Narcissism relates to some facets of conscientiousness
- Psychopathy relates to facets of conscientiousness
How does the Dark Personality link to the general personality (HEXACO)
Hodson et al (2018)
Dark triad has a -.95 correlation with honesty-humility
bro that is insane
An argument could be made that the dark triad being a concept is reduntant since it’s already covered in the HEXACO model
How can the dark personality apply to the real world
Spurk et al (2016)
Narcissim is correlated with higher salary
Machiavellianism is correlated with being in a leadership position & career satisfaction
What is a disadvantage to the findings of real world applications of the dark triad
Ng et al (2005)
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
How can the Light Personality be applied in real world settings
Johar et al (2022)
- 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)
How does the dark personality link to crime
Wright et al (2017)
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)!
What is a weakness of the dark personality application to crime
Crysel et al (2013)
- 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)
What is temporal discounting
Higher scores indicate individual focuses more on the here-and-now, rather than considering the future outcomes
How does the dark triad link to temporal discounting
Narcissism leads to higher temporal discounting, even more so when their ego is threatened
How does the dark triad link to education
Kaufman et al (2019)
Psychopathy predicts cheating
- College through to Bachelor’s degree shows higher Dark Triad scores
- Decreases towards more advanced degrees
What is a weakness of the dark triad’s link to education
Psychopathy link to cheating mediated by
- lower moral inhibition
- lower fear of punishment
- higher unrestrained agency
