A primer on the Dark Triad traits

Abstract

In this review, we detail three personality traits (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism) that have gained popularity in the last decade as the ‘Dark Triad’. These traits are useful to augment research on personality, like the Big Five traits, as they capture individual differences in ‘darker’ aspects of personality more fully. We briefly review the body of work surrounding these traits, how they are measured, how they can be understood through the exploration of their nomological network, and the role each trait plays in various domains like organisational psychology and interpersonal relationships. We then detail how an evolutionary paradigm can provide a novel and powerful way of understanding these traits. Finally, we explore broad‐spectrum concerns about the research and thoughts on how one might think about these issues.

Key words:

• Machiavellianism
• measurement
• narcissism
• personality
• psychopathy

Notes

1. These terms are solely used for subclinical forms of the respective personality traits, and refer to people scoring highly on these dimensions. They are not diagnostic labels and no pathology is implied.