Dark triad
The dark triad is a psychological theory of personality, first published by Delroy L. Paulhus and Kevin M. Williams in 2002, that describes three notably offensive but non-pathological personality types: Machiavellianism, sub-clinical narcissism, and sub-clinical psychopathy. Each of these personality types is called dark because each is considered to contain malevolent qualities.
All three dark triad traits are 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, and remorselessness.
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.
History
In 1998, John McHoskey, William Worzel, and Christopher Szyarto provoked a controversy by claiming that narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy are more or less interchangeable in normal samples. Delroy L. Paulhus and McHoskey debated these perspectives at a subsequent American Psychological Association conference, inspiring a body of research that continues to grow in the published literature. Paulhus and Kevin Williams found enough behavioral, personality, and cognitive differences between the traits to suggest that they were distinct constructs; however, they concluded that further research was needed to elucidate how and why they overlap. While some psychologists argue that Machiavellianism seems to be indistinguishable from psychopathy and that scales of Machiavellianism seem to measure the psychopathy construct, there is enough evidence to suggest that they are two separate traits, as Paulhus notes that psychopaths are impulsive and careless, which is opposed to the behavior of High Machs who are calculating and plan for the long term.Components
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. Most of these measures are questionnaire-style and either self-response or observer-response. 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 the 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.
Narcissism
Individuals who score high on narcissism display grandiosity, entitlement, dominance, and superiority. Narcissism has been found to correlate positively with extraversion and openness and negatively with agreeableness. Narcissism has also been found to have a significant correlation with psychopathy.Assessment of narcissism required clinical interviews until the popular Narcissistic Personality Inventory was created by Raskin and Hall in 1979. Since the NPI, several other measures have emerged which attempt to provide self-report alternatives for personality disorder assessment. In addition, new instruments have been developed to study pathological narcissism as opposed to grandiose narcissism, which is what many argue the NPI measures.
Machiavellianism
People who score high on this trait, conceptualized in 1970 by psychologists Richard Christie and Florence Geis, are callous, unprincipled, and are excessively motivated by self-interest. They view interpersonal manipulation as the key for life success, and behave accordingly. Individuals who are measured to have a high level of Machiavellianism tend to have low agreeableness and conscientiousness.The original published version of the MACH-IV is the most widely used measure in empirical research. Those who score high are classified as High Machs, while those who score low are classified as Low Machs. Overall, High Machs are more likely to be manipulative, exploitative, and callous, while Low Machs are the opposite, viewing others in more of an empathetic viewpoint.
Psychopathy
Psychopathy is considered the most malevolent of the dark triad. Individuals who score high on psychopathy show low levels of empathy and high levels of impulsivity and thrill-seeking. With respect to the Big Five personality factors, psychopathy has been found to correlate negatively with agreeableness and conscientiousness.Robert Hare revolutionized the study of psychopathy with his Psychopathy Checklist, and its revision. Hare noted that asking psychopaths to self-report on psychologically important matters does not necessarily provide accurate or unbiased data. However, efforts have been made to study psychopathy in the dimensional realm using self-reported instruments, as with the Levenson Primary and Secondary Psychopathy Scales, The Psychopathic Personality Inventory, and the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale.
Other forms
Other groupings of dark personality traits have been proposed.Dark tetrad
Several researchers have suggested that 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, 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.Adding sadism results in a dark tetrad, also known as a "dark quad".
Due to its overlap with psychopathy, scholars have questioned its inclusion in the dark tetrad model. However, Johnson et al. stated that the results of their research "support sadism’s inclusion within the Dark Tetrad as a unique construct but with some conceptual overlap with psychopathy". Nevertheless, Christian Blötner and others believe that measures of subclinical sadism and psychopathy still have problems of redundancy.
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.
Vulnerable dark triad
The vulnerable dark triad comprises three related and similar constructs: vulnerable narcissism, secondary psychopathy, and borderline personality traits. A study found that these three constructs are significantly related to one another and manifest similar nomological networks. Although the vulnerable dark triad members are related to negative emotionality and antagonistic interpersonal styles, they are also related to introversion and disinhibition.According to both research and theory, persons who are highly affected by the Dark Triad are influenced by external, controllable factors. On the contrary, those who are high in the Vulnerable Dark Triad are driven by internal, embedded desires.