AN EXPLORATIVE STUDY REGARDING THE RELATIONS BETWEEN DARK TRIAD AND HEXACO MODEL OF PERSONALITY

Abstract

"Despite their diverse origins, the personalities composing this Dark Triad share several features. To varying degrees, all three entail a socially malevolent character with behavior tendencies toward self-promotion, emotional coldness, duplicity, and aggressiveness (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Subclinical narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy are referred to as the Dark Triad due to their socially undesirable nature, similar phenotypical behaviors (e.g., manipulation), positive intercorrelations of their scales, and conceptual similarities (e.g., ego-centricity) (Rauthmann, 2012). A narcissistic person is described in terms of a high vanity, constantly seeking attention and admiration, with a sense of superiority or authority. Most often he or she manifests manipulative and exhibitionist behaviors. Machiavellianism is a tendency to be cynical, pragmatic, emotionally detached in interpersonal relations but, at the same time a good organizer and having long-term strategically thinking. Psychopathy presents as cardinal features: impulsiveness, emotional detachment, manipulative antisocial behavior. In the current study 126 participants (24 males and 102 females), ages ranged between 18 and 26 years old (M=19.30, SD=1.11), were invited to fill in the following measures: MACH IV (Christie & Geis, 1970), Narcissistic Personality Inventory NPI-16 (Ames, Rose & Anderson, 2006), Self-Report Psychopathy scale – version III (Paulhus, Neumann, & Hare, 2009) and HEXACO-PI-R (Lee & Ashton, 2018). Results showed significant negative correlations between psychoticism and four of the six HEXACO factors, namely Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Similarly, narcissism is negatively related to Honesty-Humility and Agreeableness, and positively with Extraversion. Machiavellianism showed a positive correlation with Honesty-Humility, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Findings of the current study should be extended in more diverse samples (e.g., better female-male ratio) and also including measures for the Light Triad of personality, thus providing new insights into the positive, growth-oriented personality traits."