The Dark Triad Flashcards
Do males or females score higher on the dark triad?
Males (but there is a large within-groups compared to between-groups difference!).
Describe some characteristics of narcissism.
Grandiosity, dominance, entitlement, egotism.
Describe some characteristics of machiavellianism.
Manipulativeness, cynicism, pragmatic morality.
Describe some characteristics of psychopathy.
Impulsivity, thrill-seeking, lack of empathy/anxiety.
Name the four main ideas around the evolutionary theory of the dark triad.
- Short-term, agent, exploitative social strategy - exploit other group members to serve own survival. Attract mates at expense of competitors.
- Fluctuating selection - adaptive in larger, loose social groups.
- Negative frequency-dependent selection.
- Cross-cultural.
How do the three constructs correlate?
Low correlations - separate but related constructs.
How does the dark triad correlate with IQ?
It doesn’t.
What is narcissism highly correlated with?
Self-enhancement such as biased self-rating and over-claiming.
High extraversion, high openness.
What is machiavellianism and psychopathy correlated with?
Low conscientiousness.
Additionally, psychopathy is correlated with low neuroticism, high extraversion and high openness.
What is the best dark triad model?
The hierarchical model.
Accounted for about 50% of the variance. Half of the dark triad is shared, the other half is unique to each individual trait.
Why is the dirty dozen not a good measure for the dark triad traits?
Only 12 items.
Scale consists only of strongly disagree/agree.
Explain what is meant by the dark tetrad.
Everyday sadism (Buckels et al, 2013).
Correlated .40-.60 with machiavellianism and psychopathy.
Shares dark core of low agreeableness, empathy and honesty/humility.
Predicts vandalism, online trolling + enjoyment of violent video games.
What is the dark triad core?
Low agreeableness, empathy and honesty/humility.
What are the two main components of narcissism and what do they represent?
Adaptive/admiration - authority, self-sufficiency, high self-esteem. Self-enhance using public + privates strategies.
Maladaptive/rivalry - entitlement, exploitativeness, exhibitionism. Self-enhance + self-protect using public strategies.
These two components overlap - they are related to each other.
Vanity and superiority also considered but they don’t quite fit into either of the components.
Why is it difficult to measure narcissism?
Can’t measure any other way than through self-reports.
Self-reports aren’t good for reporting narcissism as narcissism is usually hidden.
Briefly explain the dynamic self-regulatory processing model of narcissism.
Two mental construals: self (grandiose self-views, agent concerns) + other (used for self-enhancement, others are inferior OR idealised).
Two self-regulation processes: intra-personal (attributions, overconfidence, react to threat with anger not sadness; feeds into self-construals) and interpersonal (self-presentation, power + superiority, short-term mating, derogate others, react aggressively to threat; feeds into self-construals and affects others).
What are the components of machiavellianism?
No components - it is uni-dimensional.
What are the components of psychopathy?
Instrumental (primary) - shallow effect, low empathy, interpersonal coldness. Leads to emotionally stable psychopaths.
Hostile/reactive (secondary) - impulsivity, irresponsibility, aggression. Leads to aggressive psychopaths.
What are the consequences of being a high dark triad scorer regarding sexual behaviour?
Shot-term/unrestricted sex.
Poach mates from others.
Retain mates using aggressive, agent tactics.
Mate retention tactics partly explain why mates are more likely to leave.
How does aggressive behaviour vary between each dark triad component?
Psychopathy - physical, verbal and premeditated aggression.
Machiavellianism - physical, verbal and hostile.
Narcissism - hostile, reactive.
How has sadism been shown to affect cruelty (Buckles, 2013)?
Higher pleasure after killing bugs.
White-noise blasts to innocent opponent. Only sadists were willing to work in order to blast opponent.
How have narcissism and aggressive behaviour been linked (Bushman & Baumeister, 1998)?
Essay feedback. Could blast someone’s ear with white noise…
Results showed specific aggression to the person who harmed them.
How has psychopathy been linked to academic cheating (Williams, 2010)?
Plagiarism is related the highest to psychopathy.
Self-reported cheating mediated by unrestrained agency and lack of moral inhibition. Also measured several months later which shows that it is an enduring characteristic.
How has the dark triad been linked to criminal behaviour?
Blickle (2006) - white-collar criminals higher in narcissism than current managers.
Hepper (2014) - young offenders higher in narcissism vs community members.
Both mediated by low empathy.
However, both of these studies were cross-sectional - difficult to infer causality.
Evidence for high psychopathy in offenders.
