Previously in my Blog Posts we have talked a lot about personality, emotions and cognition, both the good that can come out of it and the bad. But what about the really really bad?
Since it's time for Halloween (and we probably all won't be able to celebrate it in any enjoyable way), let's at least talk about some haunting individuals who live among us. Ready?
There are some aspects of human personality that seem rather scary. Serial killers, for example, or cruelty towards animals. Why do people do such things, is it even their fault that they feel the urge to? Have they always been this way, or did something happen that triggered these conditions?
Antisocial behavior does indeed have, amongst others, genetic roots. Sometimes, these only become apparent under stress or in environments perceived as hostile (Moffitt, 2005). Especially in adults, many of these abnormal and “bad" behaviors can be grounded in the genetical roots of individuals’ personalities. A growing number of studies have explored such personality traits associated with transgressive and norm-violating behavior, and the focus lies on what we now call the “dark triad of personality disorders”: narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.
In the first years, the dark triad has usually been identified in clinical population, meaning they have been identified in those people who were in treatment for one of these conditions. The recent development of non-clinical measures of the constructs has now also made it possible to identify and therefore investigate the appearance of the “dark triad” factors in the general population, i.e. you and me and anyone who answers the respective scale.
Let’s say you take one of the scales that measure non-clinical narcissism, and you rate a few items higher than 1 or 2 on a scale of 1-5. This does not mean you’re a full-on narcissist. It’s like with the IQ scale - we expect most people to score somewhat around the middle score, and relatively few at either ends of the scales. This is called a “normal" distribution, by the way. So, there’s a little narcissist in most of us.
Actually, since we're on the topic - let's look at Narcissism as the first of the three dark personality traits in the "dark triad”.
Narcissism
Narcissism has its origin in the Greek mythological figure of Narcissus, a young man who was so obsessed with his own beauty and greatness that he arrogantly rejected the affection of others and fell in love with his own reflection.
This myth covers the core features of narcissism as we use it today, namely, a mix of vanity and an admiration of oneself that often negatively impacts relationships and interactions with other people (Campbell, Miller, & Buffardi, 2010). A narcissist pursues gratification from this self-conceit and egocentrism more so than from the love and admiration of others.
As they have exaggerated views of self-worth and entitlement in comparison to those around them, this often shows in personal relationships in which they tend to be self-centered, arrogant or even exploitative. This is because they see others as merely a means through which their needs for admiration and reinforcement of self-views can be attained - and thus often look for people who put them on a podest, reinforce their self-love and admire them.
Narcissism has primarily been studied as an abnormal personality disorder, but can also be seen as a normal aspect of personality including ideals of dominance, exploitation and feelings of entitlement (like I said earlier - most of us can be a bit narcissistic at times, some of us more so than others).
Some of the questions to be answered in a narcissism scale are “I see myself as a good leader” (there is a whole subfield of research on narcissism in CEOs and other leaders), “I always know what I am doing”, “I like to look at myself in the mirror”, I will never be satisfied until I get what I deserve”, "I am apt to show off if I get the chance” or “I think I am a special person”.
Indeed, you are.
But narcissism does not merely reflect malicious intentions: Apart from the mentioned characteristics, which are rather vicious and justify its position within the dark triad, this personality trait also has a vulnerable side: A narcissist’s grandiosity may be rather defensive and fragile and often serves as a mask for underlying feelings of inadequacy and insecurity.
Indeed, they can be highly sensitive to the extreme level. But instead of using their sensitivity to understand and meet the needs of others, they can be prone to take offense to the slightest emotional reaction, personalize other person’s feelings, and ultimately make it all about them. After all, only their feelings have significance or importance, not so much any others. The literature actually distinguishes between "vulnerable" and "grandiose" and some other kinds of narcissism - maybe there's room for another, full blog post on this ;-)
For now, let's introduce another Dark Triad trait:
Machiavellianism
Machiavellianism comes from Niccoló Machiavelli, an Italian Renaissance diplomat and political theorist. In 1532 he wrote the book “Il Principe” (The Prince), in which he advises kings and lords to secure their power through carefully planned and, if necessary, cruel and immoral deeds (even going so far as to propose the execution of political rivals).
In the 1970s, psychologists developed a scale to measure individuals’ utilitarian (aka self-serving) attitudes and since then Machiavellianism is referred to as an insincere way of acting towards other people, characterized by a cynical disregard for morality and a focus on self-interest and personal gain.
These are also the three main categories that are measured when one's level of Machiavellianism is to be rated: the use of manipulative tactics (e.g. answering “It is wise to flatter important people”), a cynical view of human nature (e.g., “Anyone who completely trusts anyone is asking for trouble”), and disregard for conventional morality (e.g., “Sometimes one should take action even when one knows that it is not morally right”).
High Machiavellians are able to identify and then do exploit weaknesses in others (emphasis on “do”), but simultaneously hide their own, as they generally have the attitude that weaknesses are there to exploit. They possess this cynical world-view that has them believe that it is better to manipulate than to be manipulated. This exploitative tendency may derive from a lack of emotional attachment during social interactions, as Machiavellians are not easily bothered to feel emotional involved with others.
But a lack of emotional attachment is also prevalent in another, and our last Dark Triad personality trait:
Psychopathy
The concept of psychopathy has its roots in clinical psychiatry. In clinics, patients who displayed constant antisocial behavior, diminished empathy and remorse, and conspicuously bold behavior, which was often covered by a mask of superficial charm, were grouped and labelled “psychopathic”. I guess Harley Quinn would have also identified her now Ex-boyfriend as a member of this group, don't you think?
Psychopathy is divided into primary and secondary. Primary psychopaths maintain their ‘’cool’’ (aka keep up their mask) and carefully execute their schemes and ploys, fuelled by a relative lack of morality. Secondary psychopathy, on the other hand, describes an impulsive and emotionally unstable character that is caused by an emotional adaptation to environmental factors. This means that they can cause harm to others in response to negative emotion that arises within themselves, potentially as a reaction to something that happened around them.
Four domains are usually used to measure psychopathy: interpersonal manipulation (e.g. with the test question “It’s fun to see how far you can push people before they get angry”), callous affect (which equals hard-heartedness or a lack of compassion; e.g., “I am often rude to people”), an unpredictable life style (e.g., “I enjoy taking risks”), and criminal tendencies (e.g., “I avoid paying for things, such as movies, bus, or train”).
Psychopathic individuals engage in destructive patterns of dysfunctional interpersonal behaviours, which is enhanced by abnormal perceptions and thinking. They employ charm as well as less charming manipulative techniques for their own advantage, no matter the cost to others.
What is different to the other two dark character traits is that they often show high impulsivity and an inclination towards reckless, inappropriate, or even violent conduct. A psychopath’s inability to empathize is further complemented by a lack of remorse, guilt, and regret.
The lack of empathy is actually prevalent in all three presented traits. This is specifically the case for affective empathy, with cognitive empathy not being significantly lower or higher than in others. In other words, individuals high on the dark triad traits are able to retain their ability to read and assess others’ emotions (and subsequently utilize this sensitive information in a way to get what they want), while their lack of affective empathy may lead them to fail to notice or to purposely ignore the potential harm done to others in the process.
By the way, if you're interested in the difference between the two kinds of empathy, I am currently starting a research project on this, and I’ll promise to give a quick dive into the topic in one of my next blog posts :)
In general, despite their diverse origins, the personalities composing the Dark Triad actually share a number of features:
To varying degrees, all three entail a socially malevolent character with behavior tendencies toward self-promotion, emotional coldness, duplicity, and aggressiveness. Machiavellianism and psychopathy are more extreme in terms of viciousness and thus have more social and personal costs than narcissism (e.g., Rauthmann & Kolar, 2012, 2013).
Furthermore, individuals high on narcissism, primary psychopathy, and Machiavellianism all experienced positive feelings towards sad emotions of others - primary psychopaths actually even experienced such good feelings in response to seeing fear or anger on someone else’s face (this makes me shiver a bit, to be honest).
But the outcomes of being characterised with one of these personality tendencies are not always bad: Narcissism was for example found positively related to salary and Machiavellianism to leadership position and career satisfaction.
Psychopathy was negatively related to all outcomes, which is why it is often regarded as “the worst" of the three.
Research so far has indicated that our three dark triad traits are also more prominent in men than in women. This is not surprising, though, as transgressive behaviors are generally more common among men than among women. Young boys already exhibit more conduct problems such as violence than girls their age, and this gender difference continues into adulthood. Men are more often diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder (another personality disorder, just not one of the Dark Triad) and more frequently commit crimes.
As I mentioned in the very beginning, antisocial behaviors have genetic roots. What I learned by now is that even seemingly destructive behaviors, thoughts and emotions that are rooted in genetics must have developed for a reason (or by mistake, but then they won't survive for long). What could be evolution’s advantage of producing these kinds of personality traits in some humans?
Evolutionary psychologists argue that traits are of an adaptive advantage as long as they afford individuals greater reproductive returns and access to resources. Certain qualities traditionally considered maladaptive (i.e. they should slowly die out in the course of evolution) may actually provide a competitive advantage by making it easier for individuals to engage in behaviors that help them attain their goals, even those that require the exploitation of those of one's own species (instead of exploiting other species so that the own one survives).
Despite the discussed undesirable outcomes, the Dark Triad traits might increase the chances for short-term mating strategy (finding a sexual partner but not necessarily keeping them) and support the exploitation of others to get access to more or better resources. A disregard of one’s own or others’ feelings may be mechanisms by which this is achieved.
I actually went to a talk about psychopathy in London, and know what I learned? 1 out of 100 people can be considered a "psychopath" according to current measures! That's very intriguing, because obviously, not 1% of the world population turns out to be serial killers. So there's still very much unknown about how these dark traits develop, and also how they play out. What's probably most important is to realize when you may be affected by one of these personalities, which can take a long time and is not an easy task. But the first step, as always, is knowing about the issue and integrating it in judging future events and situations.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
As always, stay curious - and I can recommend watching "Birds of Prey" if you still need entertainment tonight ;-))
xx
Valli
Sources:
Muris, P., Merckelbach, H., Otgaar, H., & Meijer, E. (2017). The malevolent side of human nature: A meta-analysis and critical review of the literature on the dark triad (narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy). Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(2), 183-204.
Wai, M., & Tiliopoulos, N. (2012). The affective and cognitive empathic nature of the dark triad of personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 52(7), 794-799.