Dark Triad and Dark Tetrad
A cluster of socially aversive traits found in the normal population: narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy, with everyday sadism added in the Tetrad. They share a core of callousness and self-interest at others' expense.
What drives it
Explains why some people consistently put their own advantage above others' welfare and justify it. Useful because these traits often look like confidence, strategy and decisiveness, so they are rewarded in hiring and promotion before the costs show.
How it shows
Work
Charm that switches off when someone is no longer useful, credit-taking, a pattern of junior staff leaving, rule-bending framed as 'getting things done', short-term results with long-term damage. Narcissism shows in self-promotion, Machiavellianism in planning and alliances, psychopathy in impulsive risk and lack of remorse, sadism in enjoying others' discomfort.
Relationships
Fast, intense courtship, short-term mating strategies, infidelity, manipulation of the partner's guilt, little empathy when the partner is hurt.
Self
Notice whether other people mainly register to you as obstacles or tools, whether you feel a little satisfaction when a rival fails, and whether guilt actually changes your behaviour or just your story.
What tells it apart
Honesty-humility: Low honesty-humility is the shared core of the triad in the normal range; the triad adds distinct flavours (vanity, scheming, impulsivity, cruelty). If you can name only 'self-serving', you are seeing low H; if you can name the flavour, you are seeing a triad trait.
Antisocial personality: Dark Triad traits are dimensional and common in successful people; antisocial personality disorder requires a pervasive pattern of rule-breaking and harm beginning in adolescence, usually with legal, employment and relationship wreckage.
A test
Watch how the person treats someone who can no longer do anything for them, such as a departed colleague or an ex.
Questions to carry
- How does the person treat someone who can no longer do anything for them?
- Where have I put my own advantage first and then built a reason for it?
How strong the research is
moderate. The traits are well measured individually, but short scales like the Dirty Dozen are weak, the three overlap heavily (especially Machiavellianism and psychopathy), and some researchers argue a single dark core explains most of the variance.
Where it comes from
Delroy Paulhus and Kevin Williams, 2002; tetrad with sadism: Chabrol and colleagues, 2009, and Buckels, Jones and Paulhus, 2013; dark core: Moshagen, Hilbig and Zettler, 2018
Sources
- Delroy L. Paulhus and Kevin M. Williams, The Dark Triad of Personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy (2002)
- Robert Hogan, Personality and the Fate of Organizations (2007)