The subclinical Dark Triad traits narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy (Paulhus & Williams, 2002) are related to antagonistic behaviors in interpersonal situations. The current study addresses whether these three traits entail different social consequences by investigating self-ratings, ratings of others, and ratings by others for the Dark Triad. In a naturalistic setting, 93 informal, minimally acquainted student dyads worked briefly on a cooperative task and subsequently provided self- and other- ratings on the Big Five and intelligence, self-ratings on the Dark Triad, and ratings on properties of the interaction. Overall, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy manifested differently: profile analyses indicated that Machiavellians diverged from narcissists and psychopaths in self-ratings, ratings of others, and ratings by others, while narcissists and psychopaths converged to a moderate degree. Findings are discussed regarding the distinction of the Dark Triad traits.
BackM. D.SchmukleS. C.EgloffB. (2010). Why are narcissists so charming at first sight? Decoding the narcissism-popularity link at zero acquaintance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 132–145.
2.
CampbellW. K.FosterC. A.FinkelE. J. (2002). Does self-love lead to love for others? A story of narcissistic game playing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 340–354.
3.
ChristieR.GeisF. (1970). Studies in Machiavellianism. New York, NY: Academic Press.
4.
CoieJ. D.DodgeK. A.KupersmidtJ. (1990). Peer group behavior and social status. In AsherS. R.CoieJ. D. (Eds.), Peer rejection in childhood (pp. 17–59). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
5.
CostaP. T.,JrMcCraeR. R. (1985). The NEO personality inventory manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resource.
6.
DelugaR. J. (2001). American presidential Machiavellianism: Implications for charismatic leadership and rated performance. Leadership Quarterly, 12, 339–363.
7.
FalboT. (1977). Multidimensional scaling of power strategies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 537–547.
8.
FehrB.SamsomD.PaulhusD. L. (1992). The construct of Machiavellianism: Twenty years later. In SpielbergerC. D.ButcherJ. N. (Eds.), Advances in personality assessment (pp. 77–116). 9, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
9.
FosterJ. D.ShriraI.CampbellW. K. (2006). Theoretical models of narcissism, sexuality, and relationship commitment. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 23, 367–386.
10.
FowlerK. A.LilienfeldS. O.PatrickC. P. (2009). Detecting psychopathy from thin slices of behavior. Psychological Assessment, 21, 68–78.
11.
FunderD. C. (1999). Personality judgment: A realistic approach to person perception. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
12.
GardnerH. (1999). Intelligence reframed: Multiple intelligences for the 21st Century. New York, NY: Basic Books.
13.
HareR. D. (2003). The hare psychopathy checklist-revised. (PCL-R; 2nd ed.).
Toronto, Canada: Multi-Health Systems.
14.
HawleyP. H. (2003). Prosocial and coercive configurations of resource control in early adolescence: A case for the well-adapted Machiavellian. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 49, 279–309.
15.
HawleyP. H. (2006). Evolution and personality: A new look at Machiavellianism. In MroczekD.LittleT. (Eds.), Handbook of personality development (pp. 147–161). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
16.
HenningH.SixB. (2008). Machiavellismus. In Glöckner-Rist (Hrsg.)A. (Ed.), Zusammenstellung sozialwissenschaftlicher Items und Skalen. ZIS Version 12.00. Bonn, Germany: GESIS.
17.
HoltzmanN. S.VazireS.MehlM. R. (2010). Sounds like a narcissist: Behavioral manifestations of narcissism in everyday life. Journal of Research in Personality, 44, 478–484.
18.
IckesW.ReidheadS.PattersonM. (1986). Machiavellianism and self-monitoring: As different as “me” and “you.”. Social Cognition, 4, 58–74.
19.
JonasonP. K.LiN. P.TeicherE. A. (2010). Who is James Bond? The dark triad as an agentic social style. Individual Differences Research, 8, 111–120.
20.
JonasonP. K.LiN. P.WebsterG. W.SchmittD. P. (2009). The dark triad: Facilitating short-term mating in men. European Journal of Personality, 23, 5–18.
21.
JonasonP. K.WebsterG. D. (2010). The dirty dozen: A concise measure of the dark triad. Psychological Assessment, 22, 420–432.
22.
JonesD. N.PaulhusD. L. (2009). Machiavellianism. In LearyM. R.DoyleR. H. (Eds.), Handbook of individual differences in social behavior (pp. 93–108). New York, NY: Guilford.
23.
JonesD. N.PaulhusD. L. (2010). Differentiating the dark triad within the interpersonal circumplex. In HorowitzL. M.StrackS. N. (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal theory and research (pp. 249–267). New York, NY: Guilford.
24.
KennyD. A. (1994). Interpersonal perception. New York, NY: Guilford.
25.
KwanV. S. Y.JohnO. P.KennyD. A.BondM. H.RobinsR. W. (2004). Reconceptualizing individual differences in self-enhancement bias: An interpersonal approach. Psychological Review, 111, 94–110.
26.
LilienfeldS. O.AndrewsB. P. (1996). Development and preliminary validation of a self-report measure of psychopathic personality traits in non-criminal populations. Journal of Personality Assessment, 66, 488–524.
27.
McHoskeyJ. W. (1995). Narcissism and Machiavellianism. Psychological Reports, 77, 755–759.
28.
McHoskeyJ. W. (2001). Machiavellianism and personality dysfunction. Personality and Individual Differences, 31, 791–798.
29.
McHoskeyJ. W.WorzelW.SzyartoC. (1998). Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 192–210.
30.
MillerJ. D.HoffmanB. J.GaughanE. T.Gentile B.MaplesJ.CampbellW. K. (2011). Grandiose and vulnerable narcissism: A nomological network analysis. Journal of Personality, 79, 1013–1042.
31.
MorfC. C.RhodewaltF. (1993). Narcissism and self-evaluation maintenance: Explorations in object relations. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 19, 668–676.
32.
MorfC. C.RhodewaltF. (2001). Unraveling the paradoxes of Narcissism: A dynamic self-regulatory processing model. Psychological Inquiry, 12, 177–196.
33.
NewcombA. F.BukowskiW. M.PatteeL. (1993). Children’s peer relations: A meta-analytic review of popular, rejected, neglected, controversial, and average sociometric status. Psychological Bulletin, 113, 99–128.
34.
OltmannsT. F.FriedmanJ. N.FiedlerE. R.TurkheimerE. (2004). Perceptions of people with personality disorders based on thin slices of behavior. Journal of Research in Personality, 38, 216–229.
35.
PaulhusD. L. (1998). Intrapersonal and intrapsychic adaptiveness of trait self-enhancement: A mixed blessing?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 1197–1208.
36.
PaulhusD. L.WilliamsK. M. (2002). The dark triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36, 556–563.
37.
RaskinR.TerryH. (1988). A principal-components analysis of the narcissistic personality inventory and further evidence of its construct validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 890–902.
38.
RauthmannJ. F. (2011). Acquisitive or protective self-presentation of dark personalities? Associations among the Dark Triad and self-monitoring. Personality and Individual Differences, 51, 502–508.
39.
RauthmannJ. F.WillT. (2011). Proposing a multidimensional Machiavellianism conceptualization. Social Behavior and Personality, 39, 391–404.
40.
SimontonD. K. (1986). Presidential personality: Biographical use of the gough adjective check list. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 149–160.
41.
TrapnellP. D.WigginsJ. S. (1990). Extension of the interpersonal adjective scales to include the big five dimensions of personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 781–790.
42.
VernonP. A.VillaniV. C.VickersL. C.HarrisJ. A. (2008). A behavioral genetic investigation of the dark triad and the Big 5. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 445–452.
43.
von CollaniG. (2008). Modifizierte deutsche Versionen des Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI-d). In Glöckner-Rist (Hrsg.)A. (Ed.), Zusammenstellung sozialwissenschaftlicher Items und Skalen. ZIS Version 12.00. Bonn: GESIS.
44.
WilliamsK. M.NathansonC.PaulhusD. L. (2003). Structure and validity of the self-report psychopathy scale-III in normal populations. Presentation at the 11th annual convention of the American Psychological Association, Toronto, Canada.
45.
WilsonD. S.NearD. C.MillerR. R. (1998). Individual differences in Machiavellianism as a mix of cooperative and exploitative strategies. Evolution and Human Behavior, 19, 203–212.
46.
WinkP. (1991). Two faces of narcissism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 590–597.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
