The Dark Triad, happiness and subjective well-being

Abstract

Narcissism can be expressed in grandiose or vulnerable forms. We examined whether positive psychological states (defined by the Oxford Happiness Inventory (OHI) and the Diener Satisfaction With Life (SWL) scales) assisted differentiation relative to general personality traits and the ''the Dark Triad'' (psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism, measured by the D12 and Short Dark Triad (SD3) indices) for 840 persons primarily from the UK, USA and Canada. The best fitting structural equation model comprised two latent variables, one of positive mood (comprising total scores on the OHI and SWL scales), and another forming a ''dark dyad'' of Machiavellianism and psychopathy (predicted by low agreeableness and lower positive mood), with narcissism regarded as a separate construct correlated with the dark dyad. Latent positive mood was primarily predicted by higher emotional stability and extraversion. Narcissism was predicted by lower emotional stability, lower agreeableness, and higher extraversion. Latent profile analysis identified four groups in the data: ''unhappy but not narcissistic'', ''vulnerable narcissism'', ''happy non-narcissism'' and ''grandiose narcissism''. Our results suggest more problematic narcissism can be identified by reference to measures indexing positive mood states and general personality traits.

Structural Investigation of the Short Dark Triad Questionnaire in Polish Population

“…As in the assessment of the external validity of SD3, in our investigation of the structural validity, we tested different CFA models and found a very high correlation between Machiavellianism and psychopathy, which emphasize the difficulty of differentiating between the two. This result is in line with the literature, e.g., Egan et al (2014). Moreover, narcissism has been the least correlated with other dark traits in most studies (e.g., Jonason 2015).…”

“…In contrast, some researchers have argued for reducing the Dark Triad into the Dark Dyad by excluding narcissism (Egan et al 2014;Kowalski et al 2016). Although the research on the Dark Triad is flourishing (Furnham et al 2013;Paulhus 2014), few studies have investigated the structure of the Dark Triad and assessed it critically (Persson et al 2017).…”

The many faces of narcissism: Narcissism factors and their predictive utility

“…Grandiose narcissism is positively related to extraversion and negatively related to neuroticism and agreeableness; whereas vulnerable narcissism is positively related to neuroticism and negatively related to extraversion and agreeableness (Miller et al, 2011). Other research has found that vulnerable narcissism is also closely related to psychopathy and Machiavellianism, unlike grandiose narcissism (Egan, Chan, & Shorter, 2014). Grandiose and vulnerable narcissism have divergent associations with psychological distress.…”

Parent–child discrepancies in the assessment of children’s and adolescents’ happiness

“…Apart from single item measures, the Oxford Happiness Questionnaireshort form (Hills & Argyle, 2002) is frequently used to assess children's and adolescents' happiness or well-being. Despite being widely used (e.g., Egan, Chan, & Shorter, 2014), it has received some criticisms as it may overlap with other constructs such as extraversion or agreeableness (Kashdan, 2004).…”