The Dark Triad and Workplace Behavior

Abstract

Over the last 15 years, there has been growing fascination among scholars in studying “dark behaviors” and “dark traits,” especially as they are expressed in organizational contexts. One taxonomy of dark traits that has garnered special interest is the dark triad (DT), which is comprised of three toxic and malevolent traits: psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. This chapter offers a review of DT research, with a particular focus on research relevant to the organizational sciences. We begin with a definition of personality in general and the traits of the DT in particular, including a discussion of the clinical and subclinical variants of these traits. We then review literature linking the DT traits to an array of organizational outcomes, discuss how the DT traits may be assessed, and conclude with recommendations for future work.

When the Dark Shines: The Role of Dark Personality Traits in Leadership Role Occupancy and Hiring Decisions in a Collectivistic Culture

“…In addition, internal psychometric structure of the SD3 is different from its predictive validity as well (Rosenthal & Rosnow, 2008, p. 115). Thus, even though current research indicates that SD3 has an unclear internal psychometric structure, our studies and others reported elsewhere (e.g., LeBreton et al, 2018; O’Boyle et al, 2012; Palmer, Komarraju, Carter, & Karau, 2017) have shown that it predicts occupational outcomes. That is, there is evidence for SD3’s predictive utility.…”

“…The last two decades have seen growing interest in the role of the Dark Triad traits (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism; Paulhus & Williams, 2002) in occupational settings (LeBreton, Shiverdecker, & Grimaldi, 2018). The increasing interest in the Dark Triad personality traits has examined its association with negative vocational outcomes, such as workplace deviance and counterproductive behaviors (Grijalva & Newman, 2015; O’Boyle, Forsyth, Banks, & McDaniel, 2012).…”

Individual and Organizational Predictors of White-Collar Crime: A Meta-Analysis

“…The finding that positive personality traits have a significant and negative effect on white-collar offending should help bolster employers' confidence in screening for characteristics such as honesty and agreeableness in the recruitment and selection of potential employees (Nikolaou & Foti, 2018). Similarly, the observed significant effects of negative personality traits are consistent with research demonstrating the connections between the "dark triad" (i.e., psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism) and a variety of problematic outcomes in organizations (LeBreton et al, 2018;Tokarev et al, 2017). Effectively managing individuals who possess these traits is likely a more challenging task than selecting for positive traits, especially given that psychopathy-at least in corporate leaders-has also been linked to business success (Boddy, 2017).…”

Age differences in Machiavellianism across the life span: Evidence from a large‐scale cross‐sectional study

“…Potential reasons for this finding could be that Machiavellians generally strive for agentic goals such as money and power (Christie & Greis, 1970; Wilson et al, 1996) and are especially motivated by financial goals (Jones & Paulhus, 2009). In a similar vein, Machiavellians act strategically and plan ahead (Grosz et al, 2017), which might help them to extract resources from their environment and navigate organizational politics to climb the corporate ladder (Smith et al, 2018) and might be more willing to cross lines, such as lying to get ahead in their jobs (Hogue, Levashina, & Hang, 2013; LeBreton, Shiverdecker, & Grimaldi, 2018).…”