Transcript The dark side of The Self - University of British Columbia

Class 33
The Dark Triad
of Personality
NARCISSIST
MACHIAVELLIAN
PSYCHOPATH
The Dark Triad
First distinguished by
Paulhus & Williams (2002)
 Narcissist: egotistical attention-seeker
 Machiavellian: strategic manipulation
 Psychopath: impulsive thrill-seeker
What is the common factor?
callousness
N
M
P
CLINICAL LEVEL
-serious problems
-requires professional intervention
SUB-CLINICAL LEVEL
-mild version, can manage in everyday
society
-BUT maladaptive because aversive to
others
Psychopath
Clinical version
 key features:
 impulsive & callous
 Keeps committing crimes
 Never learns
 Most of life spent in prison
The Subclinical Version
 Successful psychopath: milder or paired
with a desirable attribute
 Has avoided prison – so far
 Dark Niches: Bullies, nasty bosses
Hockey Goons
- paid big salary to be nasty
- often nasty outside of sport
e.g.,
- drill instructors in military
- paid to toughen you up
Narcissist
Clinical Version
 SYNDROME
 Sense of superiority
 Constant bragging
 Feels entitled to superior treatment
 Needs attention
 WHY?
 Deep insecurity
Sub-clinical Version
 SYNDROME
 Begins with conceit?
 Gifted with desirable attribute
 e.g., admired celebrities
 Acquired narcissism?
 Can encourage destructive behavior
Examples
Kanye West
Lindsay Lohan
The Machiavellian
Niccolo Machiavelli
history
 Advisor to the Medici family in Italy (ca. 1500)
 To succeed in politics, you must manipulate
others
 TACTICS: e.g., flatter important people
 EXCUSE: Most people are ignorant and deserve
to be manipulated
Ancient Precedent
Sun-Tzu:
The Art of War
(ca. 500 B.C.)
Bernie Madoff
Financial manipulator
Relations among the DARK TRIAD:
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
 Used questionnaires to predict actual
behavior
 WHO CHEATS ?
 A. Copying answers during exams
 Subclinical psychopaths
B. Plagiarizing term papers
•Machiavellians
WHO AGGRESSES?
Jones & Paulhus study
(2013)
 white noise paradigm
 Advertised as Competitive Game Study
Results
 Narcissists aggressed after being
insulted
 Psychopaths aggressed after being
attacked
CONCLUSIONS
Summary of D3 Features
 Narcissists brag
 Psychopaths impulsively hurt others & don’t care
 Machiavellians manipulate to get what they want
 All are callous
They can co-occur
Adolph
Hitler
Mohammar
Gadhafi
Josef Stalin
 The newest member
The sadistic
personality
Sexual Sadism
-from the
Marquis de Sade
-popular novel
50 Shades of Grey
Criminal Sadism
-Clifford Olson
Political Sadism
-Vlad the Impaler
EVERYDAY SADISM
-non sexual
-non criminal
Abusive prison guards
Cage Fighting
films, television, video games
1.
Clockwork Orange
2. Sopranos
3. Grand Theft Auto
EVERYDAY (NON-SEXUAL SADISM)
CAUSES
 Sadism encouraged by authorities
 Encouraged by in-group favoritism
 Encouraged by sports norms
 Personal revenge
 Question:
 How to show sadism in the psychology
laboratory?
 Answer:
 Show that Sadism questionnaire predicts amount
of bug crunching
 30 percent willing to crunch bugs in a grinder
 Give me more !
 30 percent willing to work for opportunity to blast
innocent partner with loud white noise
RESULTS
 Those who score high on the Everyday
Sadism Scale will be more willing to
crunch the bug themselves
 Also those scoring high on RWA agreed
if experimenter insisted
 (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 !
CONCLUSIONS
 We tend to lump together bad personalities
 To understand dark characters, more
differentiation is needed
 DARK TETRAD
 Maybe more…………..