Think of the dark triad of narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism as the Bermuda Triangle – it’s dangerous to get close to!
The dominant traits between the three often overlap and create harmful and toxic personality profiles, especially when it comes to intimate relationships, where we let our guard down.
What is the dark triad?
This popular term was coined in 2002 by Paulhus and Williams. The Dark Triad refers to three unusually negative personality traits – narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. The latter two share more traits with each other than with narcissists.
In general, the term refers to individuals with “subclinical” symptoms, meaning they may not necessarily suffer from narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) or antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Machiavellianism originated from Machiavelli’s philosophy and is not a mental health disorder.
Narcissism is characterized by the pursuit of ego gratification, vanity, and a sense of superiority, grandiosity, dominance, and entitlement.
Machiavellianism is characterized by manipulativeness, a deceptive, duplicitous, and immoral personality, focused on self-interest and personal gain.
Psychopathy is characterized by callousness, impulsivity, and enduring antisocial and bold behavior.
Related: How To Know If The Person You Love Is A Narcissist
Recent comparative research on the Dark Triad has attempted to analyze the differences between these three malevolent personalities. To varying degrees, everyone acts aggressively out of self-interest and lacks empathy and remorse. They are skilled at manipulating, exploiting, and deceiving others, although their motives and tactics vary. They violate social norms and moral values, lie, deceive, cheat, steal and bully. It is believed that genetic factors underlie their personality.
Machiavellianism and psychopathy are closely linked due to their malicious behavior, while narcissists are defensive and more vulnerable. This is because their grandiosity and arrogance is a front for deeper feelings of inferiority.
Men outnumber women, primarily when psychopathic traits are measured (i.e., not just deception, manipulation, etc.). This difference is associated with overt antisocial behavior associated with psychopathy, suggesting that it may be due to biological factors, such as testosterone, and social norms.
All three types (to a lesser extent narcissistic) scored low on agreeableness, as measured by the Big Five personality test that assesses extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness. Agreeableness is different from charm and charisma. It involves trustworthiness, unselfishness, integrity, compliance, kindness, and humility, which are essential for good relationships.
Machiavellians and psychopaths are the most unscrupulous. (Why work when you can cheat and steal!) Psychopaths have the lowest level of neuroticism or negative emotions, which makes them the most evil.
As expected, narcissists score higher on openness and are more extroverted. Openness is linked to evidence suggesting that narcissists tend to be creative.
Related: The Harsh Truth About how You’re Captured by ‘The Wait’ While He’s out There With Her
Common Dark Triad Personality Traits
- Deception
All three personality types lack honesty and humility, which includes sincerity, sincerity, non-greed, and fairness. A study on cheating revealed that all three cheat when the risk of detection is low. When the risk is high, psychopaths and Machiavellians (when their thinking capacity is low) cheat.
They will both intentionally lie. Narcissists have high levels of self-deception rather than intentional dishonesty.
- Psychological and social issues
Comparative research has examined a variety of behaviors, including aggression (bullying, sadism, aggression, violence), disorderly lifestyle (impulsivity, risk-taking, drug use), sexual activity (kinky fantasies, infidelity, sexual harassment), and prosocial behavior (Strange fantasies, infidelity, and sexual harassment). – Emotional deficits (lack of empathy, low emotional intelligence, theory of mind, i.e. attributing mental states to one’s own and others), poor health (depression, loneliness, stress), and interpersonal problems (dominance, entitlement, anxiety). Self-aggrandizement), immorality (lack of values, “deadly sins,” moral detachment, i.e. “the standards don’t apply to me”), and antisocial tactics (cheating, lying, negative humor).
Machiavellians and psychopaths scored higher on these psychosocial issues; Psychopaths are twice as numerous as narcissists. The highest scores were among psychiatric patients, and aggression was the highest trait.
Narcissists scored on the categories of aggression, sexual issues, interpersonal difficulties, and antisocial tactics. Among the three personalities, most of the high scores were due to psychopathic traits. When these issues were controlled (removed), narcissism was still responsible for personal difficulties.
- Cruelty
To further understand the lack of empathy among Dark Triad personalities, research has examined affective empathy, which is the ability to have an appropriate emotional response to the feelings of others, and cognitive empathy, the ability to discern the emotional states of others. They found that all three personality types lacked emotional empathy, but had full cognitive empathy.
Frighteningly, all three felt positive when looking at sad faces and negative when seeing happy pictures!
Narcissists and psychopaths also felt comfortable seeing angry faces. Psychopaths love to see scary faces.
