The Dark Triad - Are People Innately Good?

 

    

    Sometimes we come across innately good people, and we can feel compassion, love, kindness, teamwork, zest, and many other things in them. All of these are considered light traits of personality. These traits are positive and hence liked by all. Lighter personality traits are why the world is still a better place to live in. But how often do we come across people whose personality traits are the opposite? Yes, such people do exist and in this blog, I will be writing about a few personality traits responsible for the presence of darkness within a person.

    Delroy Paulhus and Kevin Williams in the year 2002, discovered the Dark Triad of personality, and since then it has been a topic of extensive research. Now, to elaborate, the Dark Triad of personality comprises narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism. Narcissism is a trait contributing to a raised sense of self-entitlement, and grandiosity- a condition where a person feels superior to their counterparts and continuously seeks to assert dominance. Psychopathy, considered the most “evil” out of the dark triad, is characterised by little to no empathy towards people, lack of remorse and engagement and more impulsive and thrill-seeking behaviours, which often become a factor leading to criminal behaviour in psychopaths. Machiavellianism is described as a manipulative personality. People high on this trait have a charismatic persona and often use their charm and intellect to manipulate people and get their work done. Initial research on the dark triad was done mostly on criminals but later, as research progressed it was found that all people possess these three traits in some amounts. However, certain people are higher on such darker traits which makes them prone to exploiting these tendencies, giving them a socially malevolent character. 

    ‘The seven cardinal sins’ is a theology given in Roman Catholicism which considers Anger, Greed, Envy, Gluttony, Lust, Pride and Sloth to be deadly sins. Studies have shown that all these ‘sins’ correlate well with dark triad traits. According to theology, Anger is the uncontrollable feeling of frustration. Envy is an overwhelming sense of resentment that individuals have towards others who do better than them. Gluttony is the overconsumption of food, alcohol and drugs. Greed stands for the tendency of people to betray and manipulate others for personal gain. Lust is characterised by overwhelming thoughts that are sexual in nature. Pride is the excessive self-love a person has for themselves, often disregarding others’ efforts. And finally, loth stands for unwillingness to utilise skills and lack the motivation to act. Out of these seven cardinal sins, the highest correlation is found between- lust and psychopathy, mostly because psychopaths often find sexual behaviour thrilling and leading to the fulfilment of their impulsive gratification. Greed and Machiavellianism are highly correlated because greed leads people to manipulation and betrayal for their selfish gains. People who fall onto this side of the triad can therefore be called greedy. Pride correlates highly with narcissism. Narcissists do have an inflated sense of themselves which explains the correlation with pride. They have no regard for others and only think for themselves.

    Here’s how a person with a dark triad of personalities is likely to behave in a situation involving their love life: they’d act charismatically, flattering the person and making one’s presence feel valued and special. Eventually, they aren’t able to hold on to these perceptions of long-term love and healthy relationships. They end up with burnout, and ruin and end the entire relationship. If the relationship does continue to function, it picks up unhealthy grounds and ends up being severely toxic. This does not only account for romantic relationships but any sort of relationship be it family, friends, or work-related. As these people have a strong presence of psychopathy, narcissism and machiavellianism, it can impact the relationship in terms of violence, manipulation, unjustified anger, infidelity and many other toxic patterns of abuse. 

    A crucial aspect highlighted when we talk about the dark triad personality traits and relationships is the cycle of narcissistic abuse and gaslighting. The narcissistic cycle of abuse typically starts with idealising a person, later devaluing them and repeating the pattern till the person is of no use to the narcissist. The idealisation stage is often known as the love bombing stage because it does what it says, repeated compliments dazzled with gifts and doing stuff straight out of a “dream” to a point the other person feels destined to be happy together. Slowly, another stage is entered where these feelings start depreciating. The devaluation stage is typically characterised by passive-aggressiveness, backhanded compliments, excuses for faulty behaviour, humiliation and playing mind games. This stage often ends up with the partner feeling a sense of inferiority, second-guessing their decisions and finding faults in themselves. This keeps repeating until a person eventually discards the relationship with a narcissist. Discarding comes with great emotional costs leaving the victim in turmoil, often depressed and emotionally exhausted. This is because this repeated cycle of abuse can go on for years before reaching the discarding part. Sexual abuse and domestic violence are very likely to occur during this cycle of abuse where sadly, the silence of the victim is a part of it which makes these crimes go highly under-reported. 

    The big question is, why do people with the dark triad are more susceptible to becoming criminals? The answer is, these dark traits are antagonistic social strategies that show manipulative and callous behaviour, leading to a range of negative, aversive psychosocial outcomes. For instance, aggression, violence, low affective empathy, motives for power and money, and coercive workplace ethics that are counterproductive. People high on dark traits have immature defence mechanisms which often result in inappropriate resorts to cope with extreme anxiety, which can sometimes end up in criminal behaviour as the person might engage in a crime to cope with their anxiety or to calm themselves down. Most of these people have avoidant attachment styles, which link to their past trauma of a disturbed childhood and neglect of needs. Some studies also show a genetic involvement in contributing to the dark triad of personality. However, the dark triad is not an official diagnosis or clinical disorder. But, people with these traits are most likely to receive a diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) or Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). 

    Antisocial Personality Disorder is a mental disorder, where a person consistently shows no regard for empathy, rights and wrongs, and ignores positive feelings for others. These people extensively use manipulation and other techniques to harm other people without having any signs of remorse within. People with this disorder have problems with alcohol and fall into trouble with following rules because of their drive for impulsivity. All this usually ends up in criminal behaviour. They engage in repeated intimidation, unnecessary risk-taking behaviours, and dishonesty in their acts. They are cynical and highly disrespectful towards people and societal norms; often pathological liars. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is another mental disorder, where a person has an unreasonably high sense of self-importance. They have a compulsive need to seek attention and become unhappy and agitated when others do not give them admiration. This disorder causes various problems in their life because it makes them unable to find happiness in relationships, which ends up making them toxic. This disorder affects males more than females and usually develops in late teens and young adulthood. For both the above-mentioned disorders, people affected with these disorders might not accept the fact that anything could be wrong with them, hence very unlikely to go seek treatment themselves, more often, family members or friends have to spot the red flags and convince them to seek treatment. The treatment for these disorders is usually psychotherapy and medication. 

    Effective treatment, psychotherapy, and awareness can be the key to solving these significant problems around personality. A lot of personality traits can be unlearned. With help in therapy, one can learn to control their impulses and regulate their behaviours meaning that a person can fall into the dark triad of personality but can also seek help, practise self-regulation and work on themselves through professional service. 

About the Author

Anaika Desai, Subhead, PsyCreative column

Psychology committee, SDSOS, NMIMS.

Anaika is currently 18 years old and studying applied psychology. She believes a little kindness does the right magic. She is very inquisitive, picks up new hobbies occasionally, loves petting cats, and puts all her love in a batter and bakes it into beautiful cakes. She organises her thoughts on a piece of paper and calls it spending quality time with herself. She hopes one day the world will win through love and kindness, till then she will keep doing her part. She has a warrior spirit and will rise above the hurdles life puts her through, at her own pace though. She aspires to see herself as a psychologist one day and for that she works on herself every day a little bit.