The Dark Tetrad of Personality:

Relevance to Nefarious Groups

Delroy L. Paulhus

University of British Columbia

Outline

Dark Triad

Dark Tetrad

Application to groups

Positive personalities

Boring

Negative personalities

Fascinating

Exciting

Consequential

MACHIAVELLIAN

NARCISSIST

PSYCHOPATH

The Dark Triad

Narcissist: egotistical attention-seeking

Machiavellian: planful manipulation

Psychopath: reckless and callous

CLINICAL LEVEL-serious problems-requires professional help

SUBCLINICAL-mild version, allows person to manage in everyday society

What is the common factor?

callousness

Machiavellianism

Niccolo Machiavelli

MachiavellianismAdvisor to the Medici family (ca. 1500)

To succeed in politics, you must manipulate others

E.g., flatter important peopleMost people are ignorant and deserve to

be manipulated Richard Christie created the Mach scale

Sun-Tzu:

The Art of War(ca. 500 B.C.)

The Psychopath

Clinical versionkey features:

Nasty & impulsive

Keeps committing crimesNever learnsMost of life spent in prison

The Subclinical VersionNormal psychopath

Successful psychopath

Non-criminal psychopath

Businessman, lawyer, student

The NarcissistThe Narcissist

Sense of superiorityNeeds attentionConstant braggingFeels entitled to superior treatmentDerogates others

In principle, they are secretly insecure

Raskin created the Narcissistic Personality Inventory

MODERN DAY EXAMPLES

OF THE DARK TRIAD

Subclinical narcissism

Paris HiltonDonald Trump

3. MachiavellianismMachiavellian

Bernie Madoff

Sub-clinical psychopath

Sean Avery

SOME OF THE ISSUES

Q: are they actually the same person?A: No, but positively correlated

Q: Are they mutually exclusive?A: No, they can be found in the same person.

OUR RESEARCHDesigned to differentiate the Dark Triad

Included an extensive program of correlational and experimental studies

Hoped to differentiate the three on the basis of predicting distinct outcomes

Required solid measurement instruments

Primarily student and Mechanical Turk samples

Paulhus & Williams (2002)

INTRODUCED THE RESEARCHSRP III (Self-Report Psychopathy)NPI (Narcissistic Personality Inventory)Mach IV (Machiavellianism scale)

Short Dark Triad (Jones & Paulhus, 2010)

TO ANTICIPATE:The Dark Triad members show

distinctive correlates across a wide range

of unsavory behaviors

Williams & Paulhus 2003

Self-enhancement

Discrepancy measureDeparture from reality

Objective measure

Over-Claiming QuestionnaireHow familiar are you with these 100

things?Some of them are not real

ResultsCorrelations with self-enhancement

Narcissism were moderate to large

Psychopathy were small

Machiavellianism were zero

CHEATING & FRAUD

Exam copying Study(Nathanson et al., 2006)A. Administered battery of personality

measuresB. Used Wesolowsky Program to detect

cheaters on midterm and final exams

Examines wrong answers on multiple-choice tests

Compares all combinations of studentsStatistical detection of error similaritiesIdentifies outlier pairs

RESULTS

Narcissism r = .10Machivellianism r = .11Psychopathy r = .28

Plagiarism StudyWilliams et al. (2010)

245 students

Term papers scored for plagiarism by Turn-It-In program

Both Psychopathy & Machiavellianism worked

Fraud StudyE-mail questionnaire study (N = 95)

Participation motivation was lottery three $50.00 prizes for participating

Before awarding prizes, we sent another email

“Oops, we lost the list of winners”

Results

12 of 63 students responders reported that they were a winner

Narcissism r = .04Machiavellianism r = .10Psychopathy r = .24 p < .03

Jones & Paulhus (2010)

AGGRESSION

white noise paradigm

Advertised as Competitive Game Study

PROVOCATIONS BY ‘PARTNER’

Actually there is no partner

She decides how to respond by setting the noise delivered to the partner

Aggression was measured by the noise setting administered to partner

Results

Narcissists increased aggression after an insult

Psychopaths increased aggression after a gratuitous escalation

Sexual deviance studies

We asked students about deviant sex fantasies and behavior (paraphilias, etc.)

RESULTS

Most people have some deviant fantasies

Link between fantasy and behavior was stronger among psychopaths

RESEARCH BY OTHERS

Behavior-Genetics StudyVernon et al. (2007)

N = 344 twins

Psychopathy & narcissism highly heritable

Machiavellianism shows a strong shared environmental effect

Big Six studies

Ashton & Lee (2006)

They added Factor 6 called Honesty-Humility -- to the Big Five

All of the triad load on Factor 6, with few loadings on other factors

International Sex Survey

Schmitt and colleagues (2005)

Psychopaths steal other people’s lovers

Same pattern in every one of 45 countries

REVENGE

Nathanson & Paulhus (in preparation)On-line anonymous data collection

If you’re like most people, you have fantasized about getting back at someone for something they did you.

Tell us about an example of such a fantasy and and whether you actually got payback.

Results

Psychopathy and borderline personality predicted stalking

Neurotics fantasized but never acted on it

We also clarified the motivation for revenge

STALKING

Lau & Paulhus (under review)Similar data collection to revenge studies

Have you ever been rejected but continued to pursue the person anyway?

Please give us the details

RESULTS : psychopaths were the most frequent stalkers

CONCLUSIONS

Theoretical Features of D3

Narc Mach PsychopathyCallousness HI HI HI

Impulsivity MOD LO HI

Manipulation MOD HI HI

Criminality LO only all kinds white collar

Grandiosity HI LO MOD

The newest member

SadismSadism

Sexual Sadism

EVERYDAY SADISM

Abu Graib prison guards

Cage Fighting

Video games

1.Postal 22.Grand Theft Auto 33.Manhunt4.Mad World 5.Thrill Kill

EVERYDAY (NON-SEXUAL SADISM)MOTIVATIONS

Sadism encouraged by authoritiesSadism encouraged by in-groupEncouraged by sports normsPersonal revenge

CONCEPT: enjoyment vs. callous acceptance

i.e., appetitive not low disgust

MEASURESQUESTIONNAIRES

Short Sadism Scale (Davies, 2008)Our Multi-Sadism QuestionnaireThe SSIS plus:

sexual sadismenjoyment of sadistic sports, films, video

games, etc.partner abuse, self-harm, animal cruelty

Question:How to show sadism in the psychology

laboratory?

Answer:Bug crunching

Your job is to crunch this bug

30 percent of psychology students agreed

Another 38 percent agreed to help

RESULTS

Those who score high on the Sadism Questionnaire will be more willing to crunch the bug themselves

Also those scoring high on RWA(cf. Milgram)

OTHER RESULTS

Similar results for males and femalesCommon enjoyment of all violent mediaPredicted by Everyday Sadism scaleLinked to animal cruelty, fire-lighting, and

vandalismSexual sadism only slightly relatedUnrelated to self-harmRelatively independent of Dark Triad !

Combinations of the Dark Tetrad

•The Giants

•Hitler, Stalin, Mao?

•Likely high intelligence too

Application to Group

Hierarchies

NEFARIOUS GROUPSOrganized crimeMotorcycle gangsStreet gangsTerrorist organizationsPoliticians

Ideal RolesLEADERS

Narcissist Front man

Machiavellian Mastermind

HENCH-MEN

Psychopath Hired gun

Sadist Cruel

LEADERS

Narcissist Front manMachiavellian Mastermind

HENCH-MEN

Psychopath Hired gunSadist Brutalizers

FOLLOWERSTrue believers

NARCISSISTS

High profilecharismatic spokesperson

MACHIAVELLIANS

Low profileMastermindManipulatorStrategic thinker

TRUE BELIEVERS

Need to belongNeed for an admirable identitycharismatic

AUTHORITARIANS

Obedient to authoritiesEscape from freedomWorldview Clarity

FAMOUS LEADERSHIP PAIRS

The Narcissist The Machiavellian

Nixon KissingerBush Karl RoveBill Clinton Hillary Clinton

Bin Laden Al-Zawahiri

Others ?

CONCLUSIONSTo understand dark characters, more

differentiation is needed

Too often lumped together as simply evil

They act in concert in certain nefarious groups

Undermining such groups requires working on each one’s weakness

THANK YOU

for

listening !

And THANKS TO MY STUDENTS

Kevin WilliamsCraig Nathanson

Peter HarmsKatherine LauBryce Westlake

Dan JonesSabrina Kitching