Psychologists call it the dark triad: an intersection of three of the most malevolent tendencies of human nature psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. But the truth goes deeper, and darker. There’s also egoism, sadism, spitefulness, and more. And behind this rogues gallery of all our worst inclinations on the surface, a central, common core of human darkness lies, researchers say…….Continue reading….
By: Peter Dockrill
Source: ScienceAlert
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Critics:
The dark triad is a psychological construct of personality traits, first introduced by Delroy L. Paulhus and Kevin M. Williams in 2002, that describes the relationship between three notably aversive but non-pathological personality traits: Machiavellianism, sub-clinical narcissism, and sub-clinical psychopathy. These personality traits are called dark because they are believed to contain aversive qualities.
All three dark triad traits are believed to be conceptually distinct, although empirical evidence shows them to be overlapping. They are associated with a callous–manipulative interpersonal style.
- Narcissism is characterized by grandiosity, pride, egotism, and a lack of empathy.
- Machiavellianism is characterized by manipulativeness, indifference to morality, lack of empathy, and a calculated focus on self-interest.
- Psychopathy is characterized by continuous antisocial behavior, impulsivity, selfishness, callous and unemotional traits (CU), and remorselessness.
High scores in these traits have been found to statistically increase a person’s likelihood of committing crimes, cause social distress, and create severe problems for organizations, especially if found in people who are in leadership positions. People who score high on these traits also tend to be less compassionate, agreeable, empathetic, and satisfied with their lives, and less likely to believe they and others are good.
However, the same traits are also associated with some positive outcomes, such as mental toughness and willingness to embrace challenges. A factor analysis found that among the Big Five personality traits, low agreeableness is the strongest correlate of the dark triad, while neuroticism and a lack of conscientiousness were associated with some of the dark triad members.
Research indicates that there is a consistent association between changes in agreeableness and the dark triad traits over the course of an individual’s life. The dark triad traits have significant theoretical and empirical overlap. All three traits share characteristics such as a lack of empathy, interpersonal hostility, and interpersonal offensiveness. A number of measures have been developed to measure all three dark triad traits simultaneously, such as the Dirty Dozen and the Short Dark Triad (SD3).
Most of these measures are questionnaire-style and either self-response or observer-response (e.g., ratings from supervisors or coworkers as measured by the Dark Informant-Rated Triad [DIRT]). Both methods can prove problematic when attempting to measure any socially aversive trait. Self-responders may be motivated to lie, and with observer responses—particularly for Machiavellianism—individuals who are skilled at deceiving and manipulating others should be perceived as low in deceptiveness and manipulation by others, resulting in inaccurate ratings.
One study claimed that the Dirty Dozen gives mixed results on the construct validity of previous studies done on it. To show this, the study used a sample of over 3000 people and measured the convergent validity of the traits to other measures and questionnaires. They then used Item Response Theory to analyze all of the results.
This showed that there was an uneven distribution in the traits and that the scale was better at revealing Machiavellianism and psychopathy than narcissism.Several researchers have suggested that everyday sadism should be considered a fourth dark trait. While sadism is highly correlated with the dark triad, sadism predicts anti-social behavior beyond the dark triad.
Sadism shares common characteristics with psychopathy and antisocial behavior (lack of empathy, readiness for emotional involvement, inflicting suffering), but sadism distinctively predicts unprovoked aggression separate from psychopathy. Furthermore, sadism predicts delinquent behavior separately from the other dark triad traits when evaluating high school students.
Harmful behavior against living creatures, brutal and destructive amoral dispositions, and criminal recidivism are additionally more prominently predicted by sadism than psychopathic traits. Studies on how sadists gain pleasure from cruelty to subjects were applied towards testing people who possessed dark triad traits.
Results showed that only people exhibiting traits of sadism derived a sense of pleasure from acts of cruelty, concluding that sadism encompasses distinctly cruel traits not covered by the rest of the dark triad, therefore deserving of its position within the dark tetrad.
Psychopathy and narcissism both have their clinical counterparts recognized by psychiatrists, known as narcissistic personality disorder (or NPD) and antisocial personality disorder (or ASPD). Given the dimensional model of narcissism and psychopathy, these traits are present at the subclinical level, meaning that they are present in the general population as opposed to clinical settings.
People with subclinical traits can be identified using self-report assessments that are appropriate for the general population. In the general population, the prevalence rates for sub-clinical and clinical psychopathy are estimated at 1% and 0.2%, respectively. Machiavellianism has never been referenced in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It has always been treated solely as a personality construct.
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