Paulhus.DRDC.talk - University of British Columbia
Download
Report
Transcript Paulhus.DRDC.talk - University of British Columbia
The Dark Tetrad of Personality:
Relevance to
Nefarious Groups
Delroy L. Paulhus
University of British Columbia
Outline
Dark Triad
Dark Tetrad
Application to groups
Positive personalities
Boring
Negative personalities
Fascinating
Exciting
Consequential
NARCISSIST
MACHIAVELLIAN
PSYCHOPATH
The Dark Triad
Narcissist: egotistical attention-seeking
Machiavellian: planful manipulation
Psychopath: reckless and callous
CLINICAL LEVEL
-serious problems
-requires professional help
SUBCLINICAL
-mild version, allows person to
manage in everyday society
What is the common factor?
callousness
N
M
P
Machiavellianism
Niccolo Machiavelli
Machiavellianism
Advisor to the Medici family (ca. 1500)
To succeed in politics, you must manipulate
others
E.g., flatter important people
Most people are ignorant and deserve to be
manipulated
Richard Christie created the Mach scale
Sun-Tzu:
The Art of War
(ca. 500 B.C.)
The Psychopath
Clinical version
key features:
Nasty & impulsive
Keeps committing crimes
Never learns
Most of life spent in prison
The Subclinical Version
Normal psychopath
Successful psychopath
Non-criminal psychopath
Businessman, lawyer, student
The Narcissist
Sense of superiority
Needs attention
Constant bragging
Feels entitled to superior treatment
Derogates others
In principle, they are secretly insecure
Raskin created the Narcissistic Personality
Inventory
MODERN DAY EXAMPLES
OF THE DARK TRIAD
Subclinical narcissism
Donald Trump
Paris Hilton
Bernie Madoff
Machiavellian
3. Machiavellianism
Sean Avery
Sub-clinical psychopath
SOME OF THE ISSUES
Q: are they actually the same person?
A: No, but positively correlated
Q: Are they mutually exclusive?
A: No, they can be found in the same person.
OUR RESEARCH
Designed to differentiate the Dark Triad
Included an extensive program of correlational
and experimental studies
Hoped to differentiate the three on the basis of
predicting distinct outcomes
Required solid measurement instruments
Primarily student and Mechanical Turk samples
Paulhus & Williams (2002)
INTRODUCED THE RESEARCH
SRP III (Self-Report Psychopathy)
NPI (Narcissistic Personality Inventory)
Mach IV (Machiavellianism scale)
Short Dark Triad (Jones & Paulhus, 2010)
TO ANTICIPATE:
The Dark Triad members show
distinctive correlates across a wide
range of unsavory behaviors
Williams & Paulhus 2003
Self-enhancement
Discrepancy measure
Departure from reality
Objective measure
Over-Claiming Questionnaire
How familiar are you with these 100
things?
Some of them are not real
Results
Correlations with self-enhancement
Narcissism were moderate to large
Psychopathy were small
Machiavellianism were zero
CHEATING & FRAUD
Exam copying Study
(Nathanson et al., 2006)
A. Administered battery of personality measures
B. Used Wesolowsky Program to detect cheaters
on midterm and final exams
Examines wrong answers on multiple-choice tests
Compares all combinations of students
Statistical detection of error similarities
Identifies outlier pairs
RESULTS
Narcissism
Machivellianism
Psychopathy
r = .10
r = .11
r = .28
Plagiarism Study
Williams et al. (2010)
245 students
Term papers scored for plagiarism by Turn-It-In
program
Both Psychopathy & Machiavellianism worked
Fraud Study
E-mail questionnaire study (N = 95)
Participation motivation was lottery
three $50.00 prizes for participating
Before awarding prizes, we sent another email
“Oops, we lost the list of winners”
Results
12 of 63 students responders reported that they
were a winner
Narcissism
Machiavellianism
Psychopathy
r = .04
r = .10
r = .24
p < .03
AGGRESSION
Jones & Paulhus (2010)
white noise paradigm
Advertised as Competitive Game Study
PROVOCATIONS BY ‘PARTNER’
Actually there is no partner
She decides how to respond by setting the noise
delivered to the partner
Aggression was measured by the noise setting
administered to partner
Results
Narcissists increased aggression after an
insult
Psychopaths increased aggression after
a gratuitous escalation
Sexual deviance studies
We asked students about deviant sex fantasies
and behavior (paraphilias, etc.)
RESULTS
Most people have some deviant fantasies
Link between fantasy and behavior was stronger
among psychopaths
RESEARCH BY
OTHERS
Behavior-Genetics Study
Vernon et al. (2007)
N = 344 twins
Psychopathy & narcissism highly heritable
Machiavellianism shows a strong shared
environmental effect
Big Six studies
Ashton & Lee (2006)
They added Factor 6 called Honesty-Humility --
to the Big Five
All of the triad load on Factor 6, with few loadings
on other factors
International Sex Survey
Schmitt and colleagues (2005)
Psychopaths steal other people’s lovers
Same pattern in every one of 45 countries
REVENGE
Nathanson & Paulhus (in
preparation)
On-line anonymous data collection
If you’re like most people, you have fantasized
about getting back at someone for something
they did you.
Tell us about an example of such a fantasy and
and whether you actually got payback.
Results
Psychopathy and borderline personality predicted
stalking
Neurotics fantasized but never acted on it
We also clarified the motivation for revenge
STALKING
Lau & Paulhus (under review)
Similar data collection to revenge studies
Have you ever been rejected but continued to
pursue the person anyway?
Please give us the details
RESULTS : psychopaths were the most frequent
stalkers
CONCLUSIONS
Theoretical Features of D3
Narc
Mach
Psychopathy
Callousness
HI
HI
HI
Impulsivity
MOD
LO
HI
Manipulation
MOD
HI
HI
Criminality
LO
Grandiosity
HI
only
white collar
LO
all kinds
MOD
The newest member
Sadism
Sexual Sadism
EVERYDAY SADISM
Abu Graib prison guards
Cage Fighting
Video games
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Postal 2
Grand Theft Auto 3
Manhunt
Mad World
Thrill Kill
EVERYDAY (NON-SEXUAL SADISM)
MOTIVATIONS
Sadism encouraged by authorities
Sadism encouraged by in-group
Encouraged by sports norms
Personal revenge
CONCEPT: enjoyment vs. callous acceptance
i.e., appetitive not low disgust
MEASURES
QUESTIONNAIRES
Short Sadism Scale (Davies, 2008)
Our Multi-Sadism Questionnaire
The SSIS plus:
sexual sadism
enjoyment of sadistic sports, films, video games, etc.
partner abuse, self-harm, animal cruelty
Question:
How to show sadism in the psychology
laboratory?
Answer:
Bug crunching
Your job is to crunch this bug
30 percent of psychology students agreed
Another 38 percent agreed to help
RESULTS
Those who score high on the Sadism
Questionnaire will be more willing to
crunch the bug themselves
Also those scoring high on RWA
(cf. Milgram)
OTHER RESULTS
Similar results for males and females
Common enjoyment of all violent media
Predicted by Everyday Sadism scale
Linked to animal cruelty, fire-lighting,
and vandalism
Sexual sadism only slightly related
Unrelated to self-harm
Relatively independent of Dark Triad !
Combinations of the Dark Tetrad
•The Giants
•Hitler, Stalin, Mao?
•Likely high intelligence too
Application to
Group Hierarchies
NEFARIOUS GROUPS
Organized crime
Motorcycle gangs
Street gangs
Terrorist organizations
Politicians
Ideal Roles
LEADERS
Narcissist
Front man
Machiavellian
Mastermind
HENCH-MEN
Psychopath
Hired gun
Sadist
Cruel
LEADERS
Narcissist
Machiavellian
Front man
Mastermind
HENCH-MEN
Psychopath
Sadist
FOLLOWERS
True believers
Hired gun
Brutalizers
NARCISSISTS
High profile
charismatic
spokesperson
MACHIAVELLIANS
Low profile
Mastermind
Manipulator
Strategic thinker
TRUE BELIEVERS
Need to belong
Need for an admirable identity
charismatic
AUTHORITARIANS
Obedient to authorities
Escape from freedom
Worldview Clarity
FAMOUS LEADERSHIP PAIRS
The Narcissist The Machiavellian
Nixon
Bill Clinton
Kissinger
Karl Rove
Hillary Clinton
Bin Laden
Al-Zawahiri
Bush
Others ?
CONCLUSIONS
To understand dark characters, more
differentiation is needed
Too often lumped together as simply evil
They act in concert in certain nefarious groups
Undermining such groups requires working on
each one’s weakness
THANK YOU
for
listening !
And THANKS TO MY
STUDENTS
Kevin Williams
Craig Nathanson
Peter Harms
Katherine Lau
Bryce Westlake
Dan Jones
Sabrina Kitching