As cold as a fish? Relationships between the Dark Triad personality traits and affective experience during the day: A day reconstruction study

Abstract

The Dark Triad of personality is a cluster of three socially aversive personality traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. These traits are associated with a selfish, aggressive and exploitative interpersonal strategy. The objective of the current study was to establish relationships between the Dark Triad traits (and their dimensions) and momentary affect. Machiavellianism, grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism and the dimensions of the Triarchic model of psychopathy (namely, boldness, meanness and disinhibition) were examined. We used the Day Reconstruction Method, which is based on reconstructing affective states experienced during the previous day. The final sample consisted of 270 university students providing affective ratings of 3047 diary episodes. Analyses using multilevel modelling showed that only boldness had a positive association with positive affective states and affect balance, and a negative association with negative affective states. Grandiose narcissism and its sub-dimensions had no relationship with momentary affect. The other dark traits were related to negative momentary affect and/or inversely related to positive momentary affect and affect balance. As a whole, our results empirically demonstrated distinctiveness of the Dark Triad traits in their relationship to everyday affective states. These findings are not congruent with the notion that people with the Dark Triad traits, who have a dispositional tendency to manipulate and exploit others, are generally cold and invulnerable to negative feelings. The associations between the Dark Triad and momentary affect were discussed in the contexts of evolutionary and positive psychology, in relation to the role and adaptive value of positive and negative emotions experienced by individuals higher in Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy.

Machiavellianism, self-concept and resilience: do they affect employee performance? A moderated-mediated analysis

“…Under some circumstances, Machiavellianism can positively impact the organizations because high Mach employees find it beneficial to adapt their behavior to benefit the organization (Belschak et al, 2018) and demonstrate better task performance (Kuyumcu and Dahling, 2014). Besides, this study adds to a growing body of research (Pilch, 2020), indicating a less opinionated perspective about the Dark Triads, like Machiavellianism. On the other hand, resilience has a mediating role between self-concept and employee performance, and this mediating role has been empirically supported by recent research (Labrague and De Los Santos, 2021) 5.3.2 Practical implications.…”

The relationships between Stress, Dark Triad personality and utilitarian Moral Judgment

“…The specific dark triad empathic difficulties (Jonason & Krause, 2013) may explain the preference for utilitarian strategies when individuals high in Machiavellianism or narcissism face moral dilemmas. Some studies have concluded that individuals with dark triad traits might display higher cognitive empathy abilities compared to affective empathy competencies (Pilch, 2020;Wai & Tiliopoulos, 2012). This means that individuals high in these negative personality traits may possess an empathic profile that allows them to read and evaluate others' emotions and then use this sensitive information to manipulate and explore people and get what they want from them, while a diminished affective empathy might lead them to ignore possible damages inflicted in the process.…”

Can Dark Triad Traits in Leaders Be Associated with Positive Outcomes of Transformational Leadership

“…Scientists of evolutionary psychology stated that dark triad traits remained because they were valuable for people in order to survive and adapt (Pilch, 2020). Research results have already confirmed that people with dark triad traits have a high need for power and succeed to become leaders in organisations (Jonason et al, 2012;Krick et al, 2016).…”