Abstract
The Dark Triad (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) is associated with interpersonal manipulation which requires skills in navigating through social situations. Thus, positive relationships between the Dark Triad and self-monitoring (acquisitive: perceptiveness, impression management; protective: protective variability, protective social referencing) were hypothesized and examined in an online-study (N = 408) with (canonical) correlations and factor analyses. Results indicated that narcissism was related especially to acquisitive, Machiavellianism to protective, and psychopathy to both forms of self-monitoring, which supports the view of distinct Dark Triad traits. Findings are discussed concerning different aspects of self-presentation.
1. Introduction
People scoring highly on narcissism, Machiavellianism, and sub-clinical psychopathy1 are known to maneuver smoothly through social situations to promote their self-serving interests with manipulation and exploitation of others (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). To do so, they need perception- and behavior-based skills to monitor and control their social “performances”. The current work examines associations among dark traits and acquisitive versus protective self-monitoring to shed light on how dark personalities present themselves.
1.1. The Dark Triad
Sub-clinical narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy are referred to as the “Dark Triad” (Paulhus & Williams, 2002) due to moderate intercorrelations between their scales (e.g., Jakobwitz & Egan, 2006) and shared conceptual features (e.g., egocentricity, callousness, manipulation). Although “unificationist theories” propagate that the three traits are essentially identical or only slight variants of an underlying general dark personality factor, findings generally support the perspective of three distinct trait domains (Jones & Paulhus, 2010).
Narcissism is the tendency to employ overly favorable views of the self in different domains while generally holding negative views of others ( Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). Narcissists feel entitled to a better treatment than others due to their superiority and aim at gaining others’ attention and admiration ( Raskin & Terry, 1988). Machiavellianism is characterized by (a) cynical, pragmatic, misanthropic, and immoral beliefs, (b) emotional detachedness, (c) agentic and self-beneficial motives, (d) strategic long-term planning, (d) manipulation and exploitation, and (e) deception and duplicity ( Christie and Geis, 1970 and Rauthmann and Will, 2011). Machiavellians have a cold and realistic approach to life and interpersonal relationships ( Jones and Paulhus, 2009 and Jones and Paulhus, 2010) and they are generally suspicious of others ( Christie & Geis, 1970). Psychopathy, conceptualized as both a pathological and sub-clinical trait domain (e.g., Hare, 1991 and Levenson, 1992), has a primary (e.g., selfishness, callousness, lack of interpersonal affect, superficial charm, remorselessness, exploitation of others) and secondary form (anti-social lifestyle), but generally falls into four components ( Williams, Nathanson, & Paulhus, 2003): (a) impulsivity, thrill-seeking, and irresponsible behaviors, (b) deceitful behavior and interpersonal manipulation, (c) callousness and lack of affect, and (d) anti-social behaviors.
The Dark Triad traits are tied together by the phenotypical behavior of exploitative manipulation at the expense of communal welfare (Jones & Paulhus, 2010) although underlying processes and dynamics may differ. This makes dark traits socially relevant and interesting for psychological research. Indeed, dark personalities are often seen as sly, cunning, and reckless “social chameleons” using different tactics to get what they want (narcissism: attention and admiration; Machiavellianism: status and power; psychopathy: thrill and fun). This social maneuvering, however, would require skills in two domains (Thorndike, 1920): perceptional sensitivity and behavioral abilities. One has to be sensitive to expressive cues of others to understand how one’s own behavior affects them (e.g., in a manipulation tactic), but also adjust one’s demeanor accordingly.
1.2. Self-monitoring
A personality dimension capturing a perception- and behavior-based component of social skills is self-monitoring, the explicit observation, regulation, and control of one’s public presentation to or impression on others in social/interpersonal situations, which was first outlined as a unidimensional construct ( Snyder, 1974 and Snyder, 1987) and later revised with different components ( Arkin, 1981 and Wolfe et al., 1986). Snyder’s (1974) original Self-Monitoring Scale decomposes into facets of inconsistency, extraversion, and acting (e.g., Lennox, 1988), the latter two subsuming social skills. Arkin (1981) proposed a bimodal conceptualization with hope for gaining social rewards and success, later interpreted as acquisitive self-monitoring, versus fear of social rejection, later interpreted as protective self-monitoring. Wolfe et al. (1986) offered in the Revised Self-Monitoring Scale the acquisitive self-monitoring facets sensitivity to expressive behavior of others (perceptiveness) and the ability to modify self-presentation (impression management), which map onto perception and action in social competences ( Thorndike, 1920), and in the Concern for Appropriateness Scale the protective self-monitoring facets protective variability (also: inconsistency, cross-situational variability) and protective social comparison (also: attention to social comparison information; protective social referencing), which map onto inconsistency dimensions.
