Social Sustainability in Late Adolescence: Trait Emotional Intelligence Mediates the Impact of the Dark Triad on Altruism and Equity

Abstract

Adolescence involves a profound number of changes in all domains of development. Among others, adolescence yields an enhanced awareness and responsibility toward the community, representing a critical age to develop prosocial behaviors. In this study, the mediation role of Trait Emotional Intelligence (TEI) was detected for the relationship between the dark triad and prosocial behavior based on altruism and equity. A total of 129 healthy late adolescents filled in the Dark Triad Dirty Dozen, measuring Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism; the Altruistic Action Scale, evaluating behaviors directed at helping others; the Equity Scale, assessing behaviors directed at equity in different forms; and the TEI Questionnaire-Short Form. Results showed that TEI mediated the negative effects of the three dark triad traits on both altruism and equity. This finding suggests that TEI, which relies on a set of dispositions (e.g., emotional management of others, social competence, and empathy), might reduce the malevolent effects of the dark triad on altruism and equitable behavior in late adolescence. This led to assume that intervention programs focused on improving emotional skills, also in late adolescence, can promote prosociality.

The association between Dark Triad and pro-environmental behaviours: the moderating role of trait emotional intelligence ( La asociación entre la Tríada Oscura y las conductas proambientales: el papel moderador de la inteligencia emocional rasgo )

“…Then, given that political preferences might affect people’s disposition towards attitudes and PEB (e.g., Milfont, 2021), future studies should extend our findings, also considering the involvement of political attitudes, comparing politically right vs politically left or liberalism vs conservatism. Finally, as shown in previous studies (Giancola et al, 2022a), the means of the Dark Triad scores were low in the current research. Given the sensitivity of the issues under investigation, social desirability bias may have occurred: that is, participants may have provided the socially desirable response to appear less malevolent, antisocial and unethical and more pro-environmentally oriented.…”

“…From a psychological perspective, addressing these issues requires understanding the mechanisms through which people consume, conserve and reuse resources, dispose of waste and engage in other Pro-Environemtal Behaviours (PEB; Lange, 2022). This effort should ensure sustainability as well as health and well-being benefits for current and forthcoming generations (Evensen et al, 2013; Giancola et al, 2022a). Indeed, living in an environment with high air quality and low levels of air and noise pollution as well as biological and chemical substances promotes physical and mental health, including relaxation and attention (Tomasi et al, 2020).…”

Dark Triad and COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: the role of conspiracy beliefs and risk perception

“…Also, previous studies showed high psychometric properties as well as acceptable reliability (Nowak et al, 2020), and similar results were obtained in the Italian version of the questionnaire (Schimmenti et al, 2019). The DTDD has been widely used in research addressing the key role of DT in different domains of human behaviour, for instance, cyber behaviours, pro-social practices, and problematic social media use (Giancola et al, 2022a;Kircaburun et al, 2018). Giancola and colleagues (2022a) found that DT was negatively associated with pro-social behaviours, as captured in terms of altruism and equity.…”

“…(1) evolutionary-based life history theory; (2) psychometric validity of the construct, including empathy, emotional intelligence, and revenge; (3) basic personality models (e.g., Big Five and HEXACO); and (4) gender differences, evolutionary psychology, and deception. Notably, given the focus of the present study, DT was found to be negatively associated with pro-social practices, including equity and altruism (Giancola et al, 2022a), as well as adherence to prevention guidelines and unwillingness to be vaccinated during the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., Giancola, 2022;Konc et al, 2022).…”

Preschoolers’ Perceptual Analogical Reasoning and Map Reading: A Preliminary Study on the Mediating Effect of Spatial Language

“…The significance of the mediating effects was analysed using 5000 resamples of bootstrapped estimates with 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals (CIs) [ 46 ]. Bootstrapping is a nonparametric approach that bypasses the problem of nonnormality and enables an accurate test of mediating [ 52 ] as well as moderating effects [ 53 ], mainly in small- to medium-sized samples [ 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 ]. The criteria for mediation indicate that the 95% CIs must not include zero [ 58 ].…”