A primer on the Dark Triad traits

Abstract

In this review, we detail three personality traits (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism) that have gained popularity in the last decade as the 'Dark Triad'. These traits are useful to augment research on personality, like the Big Five traits, as they capture individual differences in 'darker' aspects of personality more fully. We briefly review the body of work surrounding these traits, how they are measured, how they can be understood through the exploration of their nomological network, and the role each trait plays in various domains like organisational psychology and interpersonal relationships. We then detail how an evolutionary paradigm can provide a novel and powerful way of understanding these traits. Finally, we explore broadspectrum concerns about the research and thoughts on how one might think about these issues.

The Dark Triad and competitive psychological climate at work: A model of reciprocal relationships in dependence of age and organization change

“…The scale showed construct validity (Jonason & Webster, 2010), also within German-speaking samples (Küfner, Dufner, & Back, 2014;Spurk et al, 2015). The Dirty Dozen showed high levels of reliability and construct validity in several empirical studies, including tests of discriminant validity between the three Dark Triad sub-traits and in relation to other personality traits (Koehn, Okan, & Jonason, 2018). Moreover, convergent validity with other Dark Triad measures and personality traits, predictive validity for relevant outcomes, and the appropriateness of modelling a common latent Dark Triad factor was shown (e.g., Garcia et al, 2017;Jonason et al, 2011;Jonason & McCain, 2012;Jonason & Webster, 2010;Küfner et al, 2014;Spurk et al, 2015).…”

Prosociality and morality through the lens of personality psychology

“…In sum, a growing body of research using economic games has illuminated the role of personality traits—especially politeness and compassion, but also openness/intellect—in basic prosocial tendencies towards fairness, helping, and cooperation. Although we have focused here on the Big Five domains and their narrower aspects, alternative models of personality, such as the HEXACO (Honesty‐Humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience; see Anglim & O'Conner, , this issue) and the Dark Triad (psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism; see Koehn, Okan, & Jonason, , this issue), subsume additional traits linked with economic game behaviours, as summarised in Table (see Zhao & Smillie, , for a review). Together, the studies in this literature reveal the personality traits driving distinct and dissociable prosocial preferences and behaviours.…”

How intercourse frequency is affected by relationship length, relationship quality, and sexual strategies using couple data.

“…To better understand the dynamics investigated in the current study, future studies could benefit from an inclusion of casual sex desires in addition to measures of desired frequency of sexual intercourse and sexual desire toward current partner using longitudinal designs. In addition, individual differences that might predict both men and women's willingness or reluctance to compromise to sex are compliance or agreeableness on the one hand, and Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy on the other (Koehn, Okan, & Jonason, 2018).…”