The Disconcerting Side of Humans: Identifying the Elements of The Dark Triad in A Healthy Cohort

Abstract

Personality is seen as the very basic construct of human nature and has attracted many researchers to study it from various perspectives. Exploring individual traits of the personality has been the most common way to understand the workings of the human personality. The newer concept in personality literature has been the study of the dark personality traits, mainly the Dark Triad, which is merely two decades old. The current research aims to identify the elements of the Dark Triad consisting of Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism in community samples, by finding the relations of these traits with impulsivity, namely with functional and dysfunctional impulsivity. Furthermore, the present study aims to explore the gender differences that may be present concerning the Dark Triad traits and impulsivity. The data for the research was collected through quantitative methods, for which the Short Dark Triad (SD3) and Dickman’s Impulsivity Inventory were used. The study made some interesting findings where psychopathy seemed to be the only trait that had significant correlations with both functional and dysfunctional impulsivity. Machiavellianism was significantly correlated with dysfunctional impulsivity, while narcissism was significantly correlated with functional impulsivity. Other significant findings have been discussed later in the study.