من و نبمه تاریکی من را تهدید نکنید حتی خودآسیبی من از صدمه زدن به شما جلوگیری نکند

Abstract The present study aims to investigate whether our dark side not only leads to aggressive behavior against others but also to direct deliberate self-harming behavior when the ego is threatened. One hundred and seventy two students of sports science were recruited as participants (60.7% female) with a mean age of 20.98 (SD = 1.95). Participants filled out the German versions of the NPI, Mach IV and the SRP-III. To assess direct deliberate self-harming behavior, a white-noise-aggression to others and to self paradigm was used. Findings revealed that mainly the common core of the dark side of personality and not its facets (only narcissism to a very small extent) predicted direct deliberate self-harming behavior. These results highlight the necessity for researching this “vulnerable dark side” to obtain a better understanding of the Dark Triad members acting in situations with ego-threats (especially self-esteem threats).

1. Introduction Past studies have shown that there is a positive correlation between the Dark Triad traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy with symptoms of aggression (more recently Douglas et al., 2012 and Muris et al., 2013). Moreover, in an experimental study different provocations were shown to trigger aggressive behavior towards others in narcissists and psychopaths. The authors point out that this might lead to the assumption that experimentally provoking aggression based on interindividual differences in the Dark Triad is context dependent (Jones & Paulhus, 2010). However, Buckels, Jones, and Paulhus (in press) found more recently that people scoring higher on psychopathy or narcissism inventories showed aggressive behavior even against innocent persons, but only when aggression was easy (no-work condition: punishing without any tasks; Buckels et al., in press). Aside from this perpetrator perspective, there is also evidence for a dark side to victims: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychoticism were shown to be related to subjective ratings of being a victim (Linton & Power, 2013). Thus, differences in Dark Triad traits have been shown to be related to hurting others or being hurt by others. However, until now research is lacking as to whether people having elevated scores on Dark Triad inventories would also focus their aggression on themselves under certain circumstances and would thus also be victims of their own aggression. Consequently, within the present study an experimental design was developed and tested to explore the relationship between self-harming behavior and the Dark Triad.

5. Conclusions The present study introduced an experimental design which allows triggering self-harming behavior. Moreover, it could be shown for the first time that the Dark Triad of personality is not only associated with aggression towards others, but also with direct deliberate self-harming behavior and thus victimization by oneself. This “vulnerable dark side” is needed to be explored to further our understanding of the Dark Triad traits as causal variables in situations containing ego threats (especially self-esteem threats) and aggressive behavior in general.