Subtle Signs of the Dark Triad | Dark Personality Examples

This video answers the question: Can I provide some of the subtle signs we see associated with the dark triad? Sometimes these are called the dark triad traits or referred to as the dark personality. The Dark Triad includes includes psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism.

When we think of the dark triad, we think of narcissism as the ‘lightest trait’ and psychopathy as the ‘darkest trait.’ These different traits have characteristics in common like empathy deficits, selfishness, a short-term mating style, as well as being competitive, antisocial, hedonistic, and having antagonism. We can think of antagonism as a low score on the agreeableness trait of the five-factor model.

Narcissism in the dark triad is really grandiose narcissism. We see characteristics like arrogance, being socially dominant, being self-centered, a sense of entitlement, and a tendency to manipulate others (we see this characteristic with all three of the dark triad traits). Psychopathy characteristics include callousness; a lack of empathy, remorse, or guilt; violating society's norms; being irresponsible; being impulsive; having shallow effect; and superficial charm. The trait of Machiavellianism includes antisocial behaviors, but they're usually conceptualized as white-collar crime. We also see cynicism, having good impulse control (so this would differentiate Machiavellianism from psychopathy), callousness and being goal-oriented (usually we conceptualize the goal as being negative).