Dark personality

In psychology, the dark triad represents three personality traits:

Narcissism, Psychopathy and Machiavellianism. If we were to ask the three, “who has the darkest

personality?” The Narcissist would say “me”, the Psychopath would say,

“I don’t care” and the Machiavellian would say “it’s whoever I want it to be”.

People scoring high on the 3 traits are more likely to commit crimes, and create severe social

problems in society, families and organizations. This is why the research on the dark triad is

used widely in law enforcement, psychology, and business. Here is an overview of what we know.

The Narcissist displays grandiosity, entitlement, and superiority and wants nothing more than

admiration. Once he gets what he wants, the narcissist is rarely interested in other people.

When he does care, it’s to enhance his status,

which is why he likes to mingle with successful others.

They seem as though they're completely in love with themselves, but at the root of

their inflated egos are often deeply-held feelings of inferiority. To protect their constructed self,

they can never admit to being wrong, which is why they lie or blame others.

Machiavellians are unprincipled, cold, and have a cynical view of other human beings.

They like money, power, and winning,

and they use manipulation to get what they want or exploit others.

If manipulation doesn’t work, they steal or betray. Those high on the spectrum believe

it’s better to be feared than being liked and offend others as a strategy to control them.

When you are a psychopath, you come across as cold and others think you

are scary. You also show little to no fear, act impulsively and you enjoy mental thrills.

Those high on the spectrum don’t form any emotional bonds.

The result is a complete lack of compassion. That means they have no problem being mean.

If something terrible happens, they later often don’t feel any remorse or guilt.

The research tells us that men score significantly higher on all three compared to women.

And while these three personalities are empirically distinct, they do overlap. Clinically,

both narcissism and psychopathy are regarded as mental disorders,while Machiavellianism isn’t.

Whether nature or nurture is responsible for these traits has been somewhat answered

by twin studies that show that narcissism and psychopathy have substantial genetic components.

Machiavellianism seems to be less prevalent in pairs of twins. However, the environment also

matters. A psychopath may not only pass down his genes but influence a child by being a role model.

A machiavellian father shares with his son not only genetic material but might also show him they don’t come up with a scary but can be charming at the same time as my experience I knew one psycopath kinda cool guy did pretty much whatever he wanted

This may also explain why they strive in competitive environments, such as

corporations. Here a machiavellian may use charm and insults to manipulate others. The narcissist,

his physical appearance and a psychopath, physical threats. And since they all lack compassion,

they often elbow their way to the top; which is maybe why

all 3 dark traits are well-represented in upper-level management.

But there are also downsides. If your mind was programmed to be impulsive, aggressive or end up in jail.This is why we may not only find ways to protect ourselves from these darker minds,

but also have empathy for them. After all, maybe they didn’t choose to be that way.

What about you? Did you inherit some dark triad traits? And if that’s the case, and if you are

aware of them, did you develop strategies to cope with them? Share your thoughts in the comments