What Have You Done for Me Lately? Friendship-Selection in the Shadow of the Dark Triad Traits

Abstract

The current studies examined how the Dark Triad personality traits (i.e., Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) facilitate the strategic structuring of an individual's social environment in terms of same- and opposite-sex friends. In one study using normative questions (N = 267) and another using a budget-allocation task (N = 114), we found that the Dark Triad traits were associated with choosing friends for strategic purposes and to create a volatile environment. Narcissistic individuals reported relatively more reasons to form friendships, such as shared interests, makes me feel good, and intelligence. Women high in narcissism chose same-sex friends who were attractive and women high on Machiavellianism chose same-sex friends who have social status. Men high on psychopathy devalued traits associated with good social relationships in favor of friends who could facilitate their mating efforts and to offset risks incurred in their life history strategy. Results are discussed using the selection-manipulation-evocation framework for explaining how personality traits interact with social environments and integrated with findings from evolutionary biology.

Machiavellianism, emotional manipulation, and friendship functions in women's friendships

“…Machiavellianism was associated with lower scores on all of the six friendshipfunctions subscales. Although same-sex friendships are often labelled as being highly important to women and provide a variety of functions and resources (Jonason & Schmitt, 2012;Silverman & Choi, 2005;Vigil, 2007), women with higher levels of Machiavellianism may view such functions as unnecessary. It is not surprising that women with higher levels of Machiavellianism have reported that their friend provides them with less companionship, help, intimacy, reliable alliance, self-validation, and emotional security.…”

“…Research also demonstrates that adults with high Machiavellianism levels select opposite-sex friends who are kind (Jonason &Schmitt, 2012). This may indicate a preference for friends that can be easily exploited.…”

“…Women report a greater focus on interpersonal relationships (Su, Rounds, & Armstrong, 2009), which may in part reflect a greater reliance on female friends when faced with adaptive problems such as finding a mate (Jonason & Schmitt, 2012;Silverman & Choi, 2005). Women spend more time discussing feelings and personal information and their friendships tend to be dyadic in nature, which does not allow for substitute partners if relationships break down (Benenson & Christakos, 2003;David-Barrett et al, 2015;Vigil, 2007).…”

The Development and Validation of a Multidimensional Measure of Moral Orientation

“…However, it may be that the Machiavellian reports concern for others because they know that in order to use people in the future, they need to maintain a certain level of friendship. Jonason and Schmitt (2012) found that individuals who scored high on the Dark Triad tended to form friendships for strategic purposes. This finding lends some support to the notion that if the Machiavellian were to completely disregard others' feelings, it is unlikely these individuals will remain present long enough to be useful to them.…”

Revisiting the unmitigated approach model of narcissism: Replication and extension

“…Relatively few studies have examined friendship motivation and narcissism, but many suggest that narcissists likely lack interest in developing high-quality friendships. Jonason and Schmitt (2012) found that narcissism was positively related to preferring agentic, competence-related qualities in friends, but unrelated to favoring communal, relationship-oriented qualities (e.g., kindness, trustworthiness), suggesting that narcissists have a more instrumental view of friendship. These findings are consistent with the agency model of narcissism (Campbell & Green, 2008), which maintains that narcissism is characterized by a focus on agentic over communal concerns and interpersonal self-regulation strategies focused on self-enhancement.…”