Personality and individual differences

The dark triad

The term the “Dark triad” emerged ~ 20 years ago when personality psychologists, Paulhus & Williams wanted to explore personality traits that are maladaptive, but still within the normal range of functioning (ie. sub-clinical)

Referes to a constellation of three socially undesirable personality traits

• Narcissism

• Machiavellianism

• Psychopathy

Although 2 of these traits are established clinical disorders, there is support for a subclinical definition since these traits can also be found in normal populations

The Narcissistic Personality

A grandiose, yet fragile sense of self, as well as a preoccupation with success and demands for admiration

Machiavelli

The term Machiavellian is derived from the name of Niccolo Machiavelli an Italian diplomat, philosopher, and writer who lived during the renaissance

He wrote the book, The Prince which discusses the strategies and tactics that rulers and leaders should employ to maintain power and achieve their political goals

He famously argued that it is sometimes necessary for leaders to be ruthless, cunning, and willing to use any means, even morally questionable ones, to achieve and maintain political authority

“Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception”

The machiavellian personality

Defined as a personality trait that refers to a strategy of social conduct that involves manipulating others for personaly gain, often against the others self-interest

Psychopathy

Defined as a drive to engage in impulsive or antisocial behaviour without empathy, anxiety, or remorse

If we asked them who has the darkest personality

Measuring the dark triad traits

Two questionnaires commonly used to measure all three of the dark triad traits within the general population are

• The Dirty Dozen (12 items)

• The Short Dark Triad (27 items)

Criticisms of Dark triad measures

Social desirability bias for self report measures, but particularly for socially “dark traits”

• People high in these traits are more likely to lie, manipulate, or fake good, so asking them to rate themselves may not be reliable

• Some items are very blatant (“I tend to manipulate others to get my way)

Short measures lose nuance in each construct

• Short scales (like the dirty dozen) are convenient, but they do not capture the complexity of each trait

• Some argue they may measure the dark vibe rather than the specific traits well

Cultural assumptions

• Many scales were developed on western samples

• Items may not capture how manipulation or nacissism is expressed in other cultures

Demographics and the dark triad - Gender

Muris et al

Meta analysis to explore gender differences in the 3 dark triad traits

50 studies, comprising of 65 samples, 25,930 ppts

Dummy coded gender (0 = female, 1 = male) and computed effect sizes (r) for the relationship between gender and each dark triad trait

Positive r = higher in men

Results

• Psychopathy (r₊ = .29)

• Narcissism (r₊ = .15)

• Machiavellianism (r₊ = .16)

Conclusion

• Men in general display higher levels of dark trias traits relative to women

• Stronger effects found for psychopathy (medium sized effect) than Narcissim and Machiavellianism (Small sized effects)

Demographics and the dark triad - Age

Klimstra et al

Combined multiple cross sectional data sets

N = 4,292 of various ages completed the dirty dozen scale (and measures of agreeableness)

Findings

• Machiavellianism, Narcissism and Psychopathy show a rise during adolesence

• After early 20, these traits seem to descrease

• Suggesting ageing is associated with lower levels of these dark tendencies

• Suggests evidence for the maturity principle - as people age, traits that are socially useful and acceptable tend to go up, on average

Do psychology students have the darkest personalities?

The big five and the dark triat were measured in a sample of newly enrolled students (N = 487) from different academic majors

• Psychology

• Enconomics / business

• Law

• Political science

Mean scores on the dark triad traots were compared across academic courses

There was no difference in scores on psycopathy according to course

Psychology students scored lower on machiavellianism than students on all other courses

Psychology students scored lower on Narcissism than students studying economics and business

Is narcissism increasing

Twenge et al

Examined how narcissism scores have changed over time in college students

85 samples (n = 16,475) from 1979 to 2006 Found that since 1982, narcissism scores have increased significantly

NPI scores were 30% higher in the most recent cohort compared to the first cohort

Increase was found particularly amoung women

Why might we be seeing a rise in Narcissism? - social media usage

Research has found a relationship between social media use and narcissism in young adults

Reed et al

Tracked 74 ppts aged 18-34 over 4 months

Higher amounts of (visual) social media use was associatedn with higher levels of narcissism

Specifically ppts who posted large quantities of phots and selfies showed a 25% increase in narcissism

However, this relationship was only found for visual forms of social media as opposed to non-visual forms (eg. twitter)

Why might we be seeing a rise in Narcissism? - parenting style

Other research blames a rise in narcissism on changes in parenting style

Brummelman et al

Monitored 565 children aged 7 - 12 and their parents over a 2 year period

Measured 4 variables

• Child self esteem

• Child narcissism

• Parental warmth

• Parental overvaluation (Parents believing their child to be more special and more entitled than others)

Parental overvaluation predicted child narcissism, but not child self-esteem

Parental warmth predicted self esteem but not narcissism

Criticisms of the dark triad

There is a debate about whether the dark triad traits are independent traits or represent a single construct

Unification hypothesis

• Traits show strong, positive intercorrelations and have been found to load onto the same factor in factor analsysis

Uniqueness hypothesis

• The three traits have different patterns of associations with other traits and outcome variables

Three traits are not enough to capture the dark side of human nature

• Recently it has been proposed that the trait subclincial sadism defined as proneness to feel pleasent emotions while hurting others or watching others in pain should be included to form a dark tetrad

The light triad

Qualities that embody a loving and beneficient orientation toward others (everyday saints)

Comprised of 3 traits

• Kantianism = treating people as ends unto themselves (not mere means) - treat people like they matter as humans, not just as tools to get what you want → authentic, prefers honesty over charm, truly interested in others

• Humanism = valuing dignity and worth of each individual - every person has value and deserves respect → admire others, applauds the success of others, values all people and cultures

• Faith in humanity = believing in the fundamental goodness of humans - believing that most people are basically good → trusts people, quick to forgive, looks for the best in others

The light triad scale

12 items

The scale was developed by brainstorming items relating to the conceptual opposite fo each of the dark trias traits but also items related to forgiveness, trust, honesty, caring and acceptance

Three factors also emerged from the factor analsysis

Issues with the light triad scale

Would you agree with most of these statements?

Issues with social desirability bias?

As a relatively new scale, there is not much evidence to support cross cultural validity

• Tests have primarily been on western cultures

The nomological netowerk of the dark triad and light triad

The network of traits, qualities and outcomes that you would expect to be associated with a trait to demonstrate that it is a valid construct

It helps to establish that a measure has construct validity (ie, the extent to which the measure behaves in way consistent with out hypotheses and represents how well scores on the instrument are indicative of the construct)

To assess the nomological network you can

• Correlate the measure with measures that you expect to be highly correlated (convergent validity)

• Correlate the measure with measures that you expect would not be correlated (discrminate validity)

• Explore whether the traits correlate or predict outcomes in line with expected hypotheses (predictive validity)

The nomological network of the dark triad and light triad - Kaufman et al

Design

• Cross sectional, online survey

Ppts

• 1,518 adults

Variables measured

• Light triad

• Dark triad

• Big five personality

• Measures of well being

• Measures of moral and social behaviour

Aim

• Explore the nomological networks of light vs dark triad traits

Correlations between the dark and light triat

People are more good than bad

Calculated a light vs dark triad balance score by substracting each person’s score on the dark triad from their score on the light triad

The mean balance score of the entire sample (1518) was 1.3 suggesting that the average person is tipped more towards the light triad

Thankfully, extreme dark traits are rarer than extreme light traits

Correlations with the big five

Correlations with other measures