This article will cover the following points:

• What is the Dark Triad?
• Why is it important? Is having a Dark Triad personality a mental illness? 
• How does the Dark Triad impact your relationships with people?
• The relationship between job selection and Dark Triad

What is the Dark Triad?

The dark triad is formed by three main traits: Machiavellianism, Narcissism and Psychopathy. The first trait’s name comes from the political strategist Niccolo Machiavelli. Machiavellianism is characterized by a lack of morality, high social charm, being manipulative or deceiving of others, strategic and having a cynical perspective[6,7].

Narcissistic people demonstrate grandiosity, high charisma, ego-reinforcement, superiority, dominance, empowerment, and self-deceptive behaviors[6,7]. A healthy level of narcissism is good and important for one’s self-confidence, however, it becomes more problematic at pathological levels. Narcissism is often only viewed as “being in love with oneself” but this view is highly limited. Narcissistic personalities can be actually seen as having quite a fragile sense of self that, almost entirely, depends on external validation

Finally, the last trait is known as Psychopathy. It is distinguished as being callous, having antisocial behavior, being erratic and having low self-control (i.e. impulsive behaviors). Usually, psychopathy is divided into two subcategories: 

•  Primary psychopathy comes along with low levels of anxiety and researchers suggest that this could come from a genetic predisposition.
•  Secondary psychopathy is differentiated by displaying high levels of anxiety and it may come from environmental adversity rather than genetic predispositions[6,8].

Why is it important? Is having a Dark Triad personality a mental illness? 

Dark triad personalities can bring extreme psychological damage and distress to the people that surround them. Survivors of toxic relationships with people with dark triad personalities often require more psychological intervention than the “perpetrators” themselves.

For this reason there has been a lot of debate around whether dark personalities can be considered a mental illness or if they are just “bad”. In the last edition of the DSM-5,(manual for diagnosing mental disorders) psychopathy and narcissism are classified as personality disorders. Machiavellianism is not directly classified as such, but is sometimes considered to be part of psychopathy. 

However, like most disorders, these can only be considered pathological when they exhibit high levels of severity and are on the high end of the continuum.

How does the Dark Triad affect Relationships with Partners?

The Dark Triad is a fairly new way of measuring personality, and the research on it has been developing only in the past couple of years. There is some evidence which shows that the dark triad may be able to predict mating choices and couple relationships.

When it comes to dating people, the dark triad may be a possible explanation for why certain people go for short-term mating rather than long-term mating. A study conducted by Jonason,and colleagues (2009) [3], showed that the dark triad traits trigger a short-term strategy for dating in men. Findings further showed that people who had higher dark triad scores are more likely to have more sexual partners[3,4]. Still, it should be noted that the sample used in this study was a student sample, thus the finding may be affected by it (i.e., if the authors used a working sample, they may not have found a short-term partner effect)[3].

Another study conducted by Jonason, Lyons, and Blanchard (2015)[6], demonstrated that when it comes to choosing long-term partners, people prefer mates that are low on dark-triad traits. However, for short-term partners, (e.g., one-night stands) people were more likely to choose mates that are high in dark triad traits[4,6]. Perhaps this is due to other traits that these people often possess that are considered appealing and attractive e.g., charisma and confidence for Narcissism and Machiavellianism. One interesting finding in this paper was about the psychopathy trait. Women who were high in psychopathy saw men with high psychopathy as mates that you could build long-term relationships with. The authors explain this finding as an illusion due to their similarities.[6].

Lastly, a study examined the impact of dark triad traits on women’s relationships in terms of attachment and accommodation[1]. Accommodation in this context means the tendency to block destructive thoughts when encountered with a partner’s destructive behavior. Basically, when your partner acts in an aggressive manner, do you act in a bad way or in a constructive way? For example, do you show trust and commitment (e.g., finding a common ground, listening to them), or do you scream at them?[1]

The authors expected women high on Machiavellianism and Psychopathy to show attachment avoidance. People who are high in narcissism are found to be afraid of rejection and thus, they are more likely to aim for short-term relationships. On the other hand, people who are high in Machiavellianism think that people would not love them genuinely (i.e. according to them, the world is full of manipulative people). Therefore, Machiavellians may lean towards emotionally detached relationships without relational commitment[1].

The findings displayed that women that have high levels of Machiavellianism are more likely to show attachment avoidance, lower destructive behavior and higher control over autonomous behavior. Whereas women high in narcissism were less likely to show attachment anxiety. This can be due to enhanced levels of self-worth and ego. Finally, secondary psychopathy was associated with enhanced levels of attachment anxiety, avoidance, and lower levels of constructive tactics[1].

All in all, we see that dark triad traits can impact the relationships we have with those around us. People high in dark triad traits are more likely to prefer short-term relationships and they may have distinct strategies in accommodation, and attachment.

How do these traits influence career choices and job performance?

         Most of us desire to be successful in the careers we choose to work in. One way to achieve success is to choose a career that highlights the things we are good at and fits our personality traits.

Some authors suggested that the dark triad is negatively associated to job performance. That is, the more dark traits one has, the lower their performance. However, the relationship between the dark triad and job performance is not that simple: under certain circumstances these traits may turn into an advantage rather than a disadvantage. This usually depends on the type of job you work in and the time-frame. For example, people who are high in Narcissism are more likely to choose jobs where they can get social approval and admiration from others. In certain jobs, narcissists may also be able to perform well (e.g., salesperson as they need to be capable to influence others). Likewise, people who are high in Machiavellianism tend to choose jobs where they can reach a high status (perhaps related to manipulative tendencies). 

One benefit of high narcissism comes back in a leadership context. A study showed that narcissism can positively predict leader emergence. This is explained by the fact that narcissists are usually extroverts, which helps to create a positive outlook on others. For example, in a group discussion narcissistic people are more likely to assert their opinions, speak up more than other members, which can make them seem like the leader in the group[2]. However, in leadership, they are found to have detrimental effects in the long-term. 

Most of the time, Psychopathy is negatively related to job performance, but can be useful in jobs where a stressful environment is present. People high in psychopathy tend to pick jobs where they get to have hands-on experience[5].They are also considered to be more creative because of their impulsive nature[9,5].

Taken together, these results show that differences in dark triad traits can impact how one chooses a career. Whether dark triad traits come as an advantage or disadvantage depends on what kind of career is taken and the situation. However, they generally do not seem to be  to an overall level of  . 

So, what did we learn from the dark triad traits?

In conclusion, current evidence shows that the dark triad traits can affect distinct parts of our lives ranging from romantic relationships to work-life. The research in this area is still a work-in-progress but it shows promising results for now.

Are you interested in learning more about the dark triad? Here are additional resources to learn more about the dark triad traits. 

Additional resources: 

• Visual Explanation of dark triad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvJDkPKbaLE&ab_channel=Psych2Go 
• A Ted talk about Narcissism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikPW7KC3X7o&ab_channel=TEDxTalks
• 7 Signs of Dark Triad Personality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JSxhMyu-vE&ab_channel=Psych2Go 
• What a Machiavellian Really Means: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUlGtrHCGzs&ab_channel=TED-Ed 
• Is Dark Intelligence Real? : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3eKe-1gOj8&ab_channel=Dr.ToddGrande 
• Book: The Dark Triad of Personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy in Everyday Life (Minna Lyons)

References

1. Brewer, G., Bennett, C., Davidson, L., Ireen, A., Phipps, A. J., Stewart-Wilkes, D., & Wilson, B. (2018). Dark Triad Traits and Romantic Relationship Attachment, Accommodation, and Control. Personality and Individual Differences, 120, 202-208.
2. Brunell, A. B., Gentry, W. A., Campbell, W. K., Hoffman, B. J., Kuhnert, K. W., & DeMarree, K. G. (2008). Leader Emergence: The Case of the Narcissistic Leader. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(12), 1663-1676.
3. Jonason, P. K., Li, N. P., Webster, G. D., & Schmitt, D. P. (2009). The Dark Triad: Facilitating a Short‐term Mating Strategy in Men. European journal of personality, 23(1), 5-18.
4. Jonason, P. K., Luevano, V. X., & Adams, H. M. (2012). How the Dark Triad Traits Predict Relationship Choices. Personality and Individual Differences, 53(3), 180-184.
5. Jonason, P. K., Wee, S., Li, N. P., & Jackson, C. (2014). Occupational Niches and the Dark Triad Traits. Personality and Individual Differences, 69, 119-123.
6. Jonason, P. K., Lyons, M., & Blanchard, A. (2015). Birds of a “bad” Feather Flock Together: The Dark Triad and Mate Choice. Personality and Individual Differences, 78, 34-38.
7. Jones, D. N., & Paulhus, D. L. (2014). Introducing the Short Dark Triad (SD3): a Brief Measure of Dark Personality Traits. Assessment, 21(1), 28–41. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191113514105
8. Sethi, A., McCrory, E., Puetz, V., Hoffmann, F., Knodt, A. R., Radtke, S. R., .. & Viding, E. (2018). Primary and Secondary Variants of Psychopathy in a Volunteer Sample are Associated with Different Neurocognitive Mechanisms. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, 3(12), 1013-1021.
9. Van der Linden, D., te Nijenhuis, J., Cremers, M., van de Ven, C., & van der Heijden‐Lek, K. (2014). The General Factor of Personality (GFP) Relates to Other Ratings of Character and Integrity: Two Validity Studies in Personnel Selection and Training of the Dutch Armed forces. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 22(3), 261-271.
10. Grapsas, S., Brummelman, E., Back, M.D., & Denissen, J. J. (2020). The “why” and “how” of narcissism: A process model of narcissistic status pursuit. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 15(1), 150-172.https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691619873350