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How ‘‘dark’’ are the Dark Triad traits? Examining the perceived darkness
of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy
John F. Rauthmann
a,
⇑
, Gerald P. Kolar
b
a
University of Innsbruck, Austria
b
Institut für Kommunikationsmanagement: Hochschule für Management und Kommunikation, Austria
article info
Article history:
Received 16 April 2012
Received in revised form 20 June 2012
Accepted 26 June 2012
Available online 25 July 2012
Keywords:
Dark Triad
Narcissism
Machiavellianism
Psychopathy
Darkness
Social perception
Evaluation
Attitude
abstract
The current work investigates the perceived ‘‘darkness’’ of the Dark Triad traits narcissism, Machiavel-
lianism, and psychopathy. We argue that a trait’s ‘‘darkness’’ may be evaluated by lay persons with three
criteria (desirability, consequences for the self, consequences for others) from two perspectives (others
vs. self). A sample of n= 213 participants evaluated Dark Triad behaviors (Dirty Dozen: (Jonason, P. K.,
& Webster, G. D. (2010). The Dirty Dozen: A concise measure of the Dark Triad. Psychological Assessment,
22, 420–432)) on these evaluation dimensions. Findings yielded that narcissism was evaluated as
‘‘brighter’’ than Machiavellianism and psychopathy in lay people’s perceptions, whereas the latter were
rated quite similarly. Findings are discussed regarding the distinction of the Dark Triad traits in people’s
perceptions.
Ó2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
How ‘‘dark’’ are narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopa-
thy? The current work presents different criteria for evaluating
the ‘‘darkness’’ of this Dark Triad (Paulhus & Williams, 2002) and
tests whether lay people discriminate them in any of these. We
thus study evaluative perceptions of the Dark Triad and address
the following questions: How darkly are the Dark Triad traits per-
ceived by lay people? Do they differ in their perceived darkness?
1.1. The Dark Triad
The sub-clinical forms of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and
psychopathy are moderately interrelated and share several charac-
teristics such as self-centeredness, coldness, and manipulation to
allow them to ‘‘get ahead’’ while disregarding ‘‘getting along’’
(Jones & Paulhus, 2010). There is some debate of whether these
traits should be regarded as separate constructs. The ‘‘unification
perspective’’ posits that the Dark Triad reflect (only nuances of)
one global dark personality trait (e.g., Jonason, Li, Webster, & Sch-
mitt, 2009; Lilienfeld & Andrews, 1996; McHoskey, 1995, 2001;
McHoskey, Worzel, & Szyarto, 1998; Jonason, Li, & Teicher, 2010;
Jonason & Webster, 2010), while the ‘‘uniqueness perspective’’ that
they comprise distinct dimensions (e.g., Jones & Paulhus, 2010;
Vernon, Villani, Vickers, & Harris, 2008). Both perspectives have
merit and may apply in different cases (Rauthmann, 2012). It
has, however, not yet been established to what extent the Dark
Triad traits differ in lay people’s evaluations (i.e., how people per-
ceive these traits in themselves and others).
Narcissists
1
show an aggrandized, overly enhanced self while
devaluing others (Morf & Rhodewalt, 1993, 2001), often accompa-
nied with extreme vanity, self-absorption, arrogance, and entitle-
ment (Raskin & Terry, 1988). They claim and sometimes attain a
host of positive outcomes, such as high status (Brunell et al., 2008;
Young & Pinsky, 2006), leadership positions (Deluga, 1997), short-
term popularity (Back, Schmukle, & Egloff, 2010), and short-term
mating success (Rhodewalt & Eddings, 2002). However, there are
also negative sides, such as vulnerability (Miller et al., 2011), less
integrity (Blair, Hoffman, & Helland, 2008), and transgressions in
long-term relationships (Campbell & Foster, 2002; Campbell, Foster,
& Finkel, 2002).
Machiavellians show cold, cynical, pragmatic, and immoral
thinking; strategic long-term planning; agentic motivation (e.g.,
power, money); and deceit and exploitation (Christie & Geis,
1970; Fehr, Samsom, & Paulhus, 1992; Jones & Paulhus, 2009;
0191-8869/$ - see front matter Ó2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.06.020
⇑
Corresponding author. Address: Department of Psychology, University of
Innsbruck, Innrain 52, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria.
E-mail address: jfrauthmann@gmail.com (J.F. Rauthmann).
1
The terms ‘‘narcissist’’, ‘‘Machiavellian’’, and ‘‘psychopath’’ are not used as
diagnostic labels or imply psychopathology, but are solely used as abbreviations for
people who score (relatively) high on the respective personality dimensions.
Personality and Individual Differences 53 (2012) 884–889
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Personality and Individual Differences
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Rauthmann, 2011; Rauthmann & Will, 2011). They are described as
cunning impression managers, self-beneficial, low in pro-social ori-
entations, less intrinsically motivated at work, and power-oriented
(Barker, 1994; Becker & O’Hair, 2007; Judge, Piccolo, & Kosalka,
2009; McHoskey, 1999), which makes them socially undesirable.
Yet, they are also judged favorably and preferred as leaders (Coie,
Dodge, & Kupersmidt, 1990; Deluga, 2001; Drory & Gluskinos,
1980; Hawley, 2003; Ickes, Reidhead, & Patterson, 1986; Newcomb,
Bukowski, & Pattee, 1993; Wilson, Near, & Miller, 1998).
Psychopaths show impulsive thrill-seeking, irresponsibility, lack
of empathy, interpersonal manipulation, and antisocial behavior
(Hare, 2003; Salekin, Leistico, & Mullins-Nelson, 2006; Williams,
Nathanson, & Paulhus, 2003). Although they get their way in work
environments (Babiak & Hare, 2006; Boddy, 2006) and perform
well in short-term mating contexts (Jonason et al., 2009), they
are destructive for themselves and others (e.g., alcohol consump-
tion, violence: Neumann & Hare, 2008; misconduct and delin-
quency: Williams, Paulhus, & Hare, 2007).
This cursory review of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psy-
chopathy evinces that many of their characteristics may be de-
scribed as ‘‘toxic,’’ but upon closer look, they harbor each
beneficial and detrimental trajectories for themselves and others.
The questions thus arise what ‘‘darkness’’ is and how darkly the
Dark Triad are perceived.
1.2. Evaluating ‘‘darkness’’
How ‘‘good vs. bad’’ a trait is cannot be answered in absolute
terms, but we can study people’s abstract and general evaluations
of traits as lay theories of traits and personality are pervasive. We
contend that these may not be uniform and present three criteria
and two perspectives of judgment that people may use (see
Table 1).
Perceived benefits of a trait may be judged on three criteria
(Judge et al., 2009): Desirability refers to which extent trait-behav-
iors are considered accepted/desirable (Alicke, 1985; Edwards,
1953), consequences for oneself to which extent trait-behaviors
are beneficial for the own organism, and consequences for others
to which extent trait-behaviors are beneficial for others. A ‘‘dark’’
trait, as described in the literature, would be judged as socially
undesirable, beneficial for oneself, and detrimental for others; a
‘‘bright’’ trait, in contrast, is socially desirable, beneficial for one-
self, and entails no or positive consequences for others.
Each of these criteria can be seen from two perspectives (Pol-
man & Ruttan, 2012): The other-perspective – asking what holds
for (all) other people – taps general (i.e., canonical, consensual)
and the personal perspective – asking what holds specifically for
oneself – distinct (i.e., individual, idiosyncratical) evaluations.
There may be differences in what we judge as acceptable for others
as a majority versus what is acceptable specifically for ourselves.
The other-perspective may stem from consensual socio-cultural
knowledge and rules (of conduct), requiring social judgment, and
the self- perspective from individual preferences, values, and moti-
vations acquired in ontogenesis and actualized in the current life
situation of an individual, requiring self-insight.
2. The current study
By crossing the three evaluation criteria with the two perspec-
tives, we obtain six different evaluation dimensions for the ‘‘dark-
ness’’ of a trait. These can be seen as abstract attitudes that people
harbor about a trait or its behaviors. The Dark Triad traits have so
far not been evaluated on any of these dimensions, but simply la-
beled as ‘‘dark.’’ But how do people perceive the Dark Triad? Lay
theories about trait-behaviors may influence how (a) we think
and feel about them, (b) we judge others when they enact such
behaviors, and (c) we valuate ourselves when we do. Moreover,
studying perceptions of traits can tell us about their ‘‘darkness’’
from a lay-perspective. Findings also unveil to what extent a unifi-
cation or uniqueness position holds in these perceptions and
would thus inform us further on uniform vs. unique or distinct ef-
fects of the Dark Triad.
First, we hypothesized that narcissism would be perceived
more favorably than Machiavellianism and psychopathy because
(a) some narcissistic behaviors may be more desirable in Wester-
nalized cultures (e.g., boldness, seeking status), (b) there are ample
arguments for evolutionary benefits of narcissism (e.g., Holtzman
& Strube, 2010, 2011), and (c) Machiavellianism and psychopathy
are pretty similar in their antagonistic behavioral style (Rauth-
mann, 2012). The Dark Triad traits should thus not be perceived
equally by lay persons.
Second, we hypothesized that lay people would discriminate
between desirability, consequences for oneself, and consequences
for others. Also, evidence suggests that people form different rat-
ings depending on whether they pertain to others or the self (Pol-
man & Ruttan, 2012). Thus, lay person evaluations should not
reflect one global good vs. bad rating.
3. Methods
3.1. Participants and procedure
We instructed students from a psychology seminar to gather
data on at least ten non-university people (five women, five
men) and thereby adhere to APA ethical standards. The acquired
participants did not obtain any form of compensation. We obtained
data from N= 244 participants (123 female, 121 male; mean
age = 30.64 years, SD = 11.41, range: 18–75) on paper–pencil mea-
sures. Due to some missing values, N=213 remained for analysis of
variance (ANOVA) computations. People provided ratings of the
Dark Triad on all six evaluation dimensions with filler tasks in be-
tween (see online supplemental material OSM A for the full
design).
3.2. Measures: evaluations
Dark Triad items to be evaluated were constructed from the
Dirty Dozen scale (Jonason & Webster, 2010). It was chosen be-
cause it could be easily used for evaluation ratings and is short
and concise so as to prevent strain on the side of raters (because
each item had to be presented six times in total). People were
Table 1
Underlying questions of the six evaluation dimensions.
Criterion Perspective
Self: How is it for me? Others: How is it for the many?
Desirability How desirable is the action for me personally? How desirable is the action for people in general?
Consequences for the self How beneficial is the action for me personally when I enact it? How beneficial is the action for people in general when they enact it?
Consequences for others How beneficial is the action for others when I specifically enact it? How beneficial is the action for others when people in general enact it?
Note: Each of the six evaluative ratings was requested for each of the 12 Dirty Dozen items.
J.F. Rauthmann, G.P. Kolar / Personality and Individual Differences 53 (2012) 884–889 885
asked to rate for each trait-behavior (e.g., Machiavellianism:
manipulating others to get one’s way) how desirable, advanta-
geous for the self, and beneficial for others it was when other peo-
ple exhibited the behavior as well as when they themselves were
the enactors (Table 1). These were all to be answered on a seven-
point Likert-type scale (from 0 ‘‘totally undesirable/detrimental’’
to 6 ‘‘totally desirable/beneficial’’). Ratings of narcissism, Machia-
vellianism, and psychopathy items, respectively, were mean-
aggregated to form a global score for each of the six evaluation
dimensions.
4. Results
Means, standard deviations, Cronbach’s alphas, and correlations
of all variables can be found in OSM B
2
and C. The intercorrelations
among evaluation dimensions were generally small to moderate
(with an exception of r= .68, p< .001; disatt. r= .75).
A repeated measures three-way 3 32 ANOVA with three
within-subjects factors (trait: narcissism, Machiavellianism, psy-
chopathy; criterion: desirability, consequences for the self, conse-
quences for others; perspective: other, self) was computed to
examine evaluation ratings as a function of Dark Triad trait, crite-
rion evaluated, and perspective employed. In support of our
hypotheses, there was a significant main effect of trait,
F(2,211) = 43.04, p< .001,
g
2
= .29; of criterion, F(2, 211) = 109.92,
p< .001,
g
2
= .51; and of perspective, F(1, 212) = 15.32, p< .001,
g
2
= .07, on participants’ ratings. Findings are illustrated in Fig. 1.
Pairwise comparisons with Bonferroni correction were used as
post hoc tests. For trait, narcissism differed from Machiavellianism
(mean difference = .57, p< .001) and psychopathy (mean differ-
ence = .68, p< .001), but not Machiavellianism from psychopathy
(mean difference = .11, p= .121) in ratings. For criterion, desirabil-
ity differed from consequences for the self (mean difference = .95,
p< .001), but not from consequences for others (mean differ-
ence = .10, p= .379), and consequences for the self from conse-
quences for others (mean difference = 1.05, p< .001). For
perspective, self- and other-perspectives differed (mean differ-
ence = .22, p< .001). As can be seen in Table 2, narcissism generally
obtained higher ratings than Machiavellianism and psychopathy,
indicating that it was judged more favorably. Also, consequences
for the self were judged most favorably among the three criteria.
Lastly, judgments made from the other-perspective turned out
more favorably than those from the self-perspective.
5. Discussion
People’s evaluations varied as a function of the trait judged, the
criterion evaluated, and the perspective employed. First, narcis-
sism was seen ‘‘brighter’’ than Machiavellianism and psychopathy.
The latter were judged quite similarly as undesirable, bearing little
if any benefits to the self, and disadvantages for others. Second,
people saw desirability differently from consequences for the self,
and distinguished between consequences for the self and for oth-
ers. Third, people discriminated between a self- and other-
perspective.
5.1. Distinctions among perceptions of the Dark Triad
Jonason and Webster (2010) postulate that the Dark Triad re-
flect a single, latent construct as ‘‘the Dark Triad as a whole can
be thought of as a short-term, agentic, exploitive social strategy
that may have evolved to enable exploitation when conspecifics
are likely to avoid or punish defectors’’ (p. 420). However, narcis-
sism was perceived more favorably than Machiavellianism and
psychopathy. Thus, at least narcissism is distinguished in people’s
perceptions from the other two Dark Triad members. Jones and
Paulhus (2010) state that ‘‘Quadrant 2 of the interpersonal circum-
plex (i.e., high-agency low-communion) is inhabited by individuals
variously characterized as arrogant, calculating, callous, and
manipulative’’ (p. 250) and that particularly Machiavellianism
and psychopathy inhabit virtually identical spots within this quad-
rant of the interpersonal circumplex. This fits well with our finding
that people’s perceptions of these two traits turn out quite simi-
larly to each other and less favorable than for narcissism. As stated
in the introduction, there is merit in both the unification and
uniqueness position to the Dark Triad: In people’s lay perceptions,
at least, narcissism is unique, while Machiavellianism and psy-
chopathy uniform.
Why is narcissism judged ‘‘brighter’’? Some narcissistic attri-
butes may alter people’s perceptions such as narcissists’ (a) charm-
ingness (Back et al., 2010), (b) physical attractiveness (Holtzman &
Strube, 2011), and (c) relatively higher conscientiousness and
achievement motivation (e.g., Furtner, Rauthmann, & Sachse,
2011). This could help explain narcissism’s perceived desirability.
Moreover, themes such as seeking attention, admiration, and sta-
tus (as covered in the Dirty Dozen scale) may be inherently more
desirable than Machiavellian and psychopathic themes of exploita-
tion and callousness. Moreover, this work adds to a growing body
of literature that narcissism is in many respects unique (e.g., Jona-
son, Li, & Buss, 2010; Jonason & Webster, 2012; Veselka, Schermer,
& Vertnon, 2012), leaving Machiavellianism and psychopathy as
the ‘‘Malicious Two.’’
5.2. Distinctions among evaluation dimensions
Overall, people did not seem to discriminate between the crite-
ria desirability and consequences for others. A tentative interpreta-
tion might be that we deem desirable/undesirable what benefits/
harms others: If a behavior entails beneficial/detrimental conse-
quences for others, this might be taken as a proxy for the behav-
ior’s (un)desirability.
Interestingly, only Machiavellianism and psychopathy showed
a small tendency towards favorable consequences for the self from
an other-perspective (‘‘if others do it’’), while consequences for the
self from a self-perspective (‘‘when I do it’’) seem either neutral or
with a tendency towards detriments. This could be explained by
three reasons. First, the associated behaviors (e.g., manipulation)
may often be unsuccessful and not confer the intended benefit.
Second, the behaviors may be difficult to execute and also not often
used (e.g., manipulating others). Third, unsuccessful execution may
have entailed negative consequences (punishments) in the past
(e.g., when someone noticed that she/he had been manipulated).
Our findings would thus be consistent with manipulative behav-
iors as defect strategies (Wilson, Near, & Miller, 1996) with benefits
to the enactor, but with great costs when something goes awry
(e.g., social exclusion).
Moreover, people’s judgments of what pertains to others versus
themselves differed (Polman & Ruttan, 2012). While all three traits
were less desirable for the self than for others, this was
interestingly reversed for consequences for others: people tended
to judge the consequences of their own behavior as less detrimen-
tal to others than when others in general enacted the same behav-
ior. This warrants closer examination in future studies, but a
tentative interpretation may be the involvement of self-protective
motives.
2
Raters’ self-ratings on the Dark Triad were also sampled (OSM B). Effects found
did not differ from the findings reported and were robust even after controlling for
raters’ Dark Triad as covariates and including raters’ sex as a between-subjects factor
in an ANCOVA.
886 J.F. Rauthmann, G.P. Kolar / Personality and Individual Differences 53 (2012) 884–889
5.3. Limitations and prospects
There are some limitations of the current study that point to-
wards directions of future research. First, although C. H. Cooley for-
mulated that ‘‘the imaginations which people have of one another
are the solid facts of society’’ (italics added), social perceptions may
not be veridical. Thus, the current findings do not claim to approx-
imate objective truth. The Dark Triad were not distinguished in
their actual darkness (e.g., how often they cheat, cause social pain,
abuse drugs, etc.), but solely in perceived darkness. Whether these
perceptions have a kernel (or trug) of truth remains to be explored.
For example, behavioral codings of video-taped interactions or dai-
ly diary studies with romantic partner dyads can investigate how
narcissists, Machiavellians, and psychopaths see themselves and
how they are seen by others (e.g., whether they cause more pain
to partners).
Second, future studies should address whether people’s percep-
tions of trait benefits (such as those here) have any consequences
on own behavioral enactments and judgment of other people. Our
data would suggest that narcissists would be perceived as more
appealing than Machiavellians and psychopaths (who would be
perceived quite similarly).
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
Desirability
Evaluation ratings for NARCISSISM
Othe
r
Self
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
Evaluation ratings for MACHIAVELLIANISM
Othe
r
Self
-3
-2
-1
0
1
2
3
Evaluation ratings for PSYCHOPATHY
Othe
r
Self
Consequences for othersConsequences for the self
Desirability Consequences for others
Consequences for the self
Desirability Consequences for othersConsequences for the self
Fig. 1. Evaluation ratings. Note. Values from 0–6 were recoded to range from 3 to +3 (0 = neutral) for better interpretability.
J.F. Rauthmann, G.P. Kolar / Personality and Individual Differences 53 (2012) 884–889 887
Third, the Dirty Dozen scale may be seen critically especially
regarding the psychopathy subscale (Miller et al., 2012), but a con-
cise measure had to be used as each person had to fill out 6 12
items. Conducting the same study with the ‘‘standard’’ NPI, MACH,
and SRP scales – amounting to over 90 items – would not have
been feasible. In any case, findings here should be replicated with
other Dark Triad measures.
Fourth, narcissism (Raskin & Terry, 1988), Machiavellianism
(Rauthmann, 2012), and psychopathy (Williams et al., 2003) may
have lower-order facets and comprise different forms (e.g., grandi-
ose vs. vulnerable narcissism: Miller et al., 2011; primary vs. sec-
ondary psychopathy: Hare, 2003; acquisitive vs. protective
Machiavellianism: Rauthmann, 2011). It is possible that evaluation
dimensions may vary also within a Dark Triad trait warranting
more fine-grained analyses.
Fifth, we used general and abstract evaluations similar to social
psychological vignette research. These, of course, do not include
contextual modifiers such as elapses of time. For example, there
are mixed findings on narcissists’ initial impressions (e.g., positive:
Back et al., 2010; none: Rauthmann, 2012), but – overall – their
reputation decreases with prolonged interaction (Paulhus, 1998)
– an indication that more undesirable characteristics may leak
out. Future research could determine to what extent such dynam-
ics are taken into account in evaluations.
Lastly, we do not claim that our evaluation criteria are the only
ones to judge a trait. Rather, we noticed that criteria (and perspec-
tives) outlined in the Introduction are often implied in extant liter-
ature (but, unfortunately, not spelled out or in any way empirically
investigated and quantified) and may also provide a more differen-
tiated picture about a trait. The term ‘‘dark’’ is often blurry, mis-
placed, or used differently and inconsistently in scientific
literature and it is understudied how people perceive the Dark Triad
traits per se. In any case, our suggestions might be refined and even
more stringent criteria found for labeling a trait as ‘‘dark.’’
Researchers could take up our suggestion for evaluation dimen-
sions of ‘‘darkness vs. brightness’’ to evaluate the Dark Triad traits
(and maybe also ‘‘bright’’ traits such as socio-emotional skills) more
thoroughly. Indeed, we could see a meta-analysis or extensive re-
view of the literature on desirability, consequences for the self,
and consequences for others regarding the Dark Triad emerging.
Moreover, as a complement to this study, also experts might be
used as a sample from which to obtain evaluation ratings. It would
be of interest whether ratings converge with lay person ratings.
6. Conclusion
We offered six evaluation dimensions by crossing three criteria
(desirability, consequences for the self, consequences for others)
with two perspectives (normative vs. personal) and investigated
how lay persons judged the Dark Triad traits on these. People gen-
erally saw the Dark Triad traits rather unfavorably (i.e., undesir-
able, no or detrimental consequences for oneself, detrimental
consequences for others), with the exception of narcissism that
seems to have some positive qualities in people’s judgments. In
any case, it might be wise to study the Dark Triad in concert, but
not equate them.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.06.020.
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Table 2
Estimated marginal means for the factors of trait, criterion, and perspective
separately.
Factors MSE95% LCI 95% UCI
Trait
Narcissism 2.60 0.07 2.46 2.73
Machiavellianism 2.03 0.06 1.91 2.15
Psychopathy 1.92 0.06 1.79 2.05
Criterion
Desirability 1.90 0.06 1.79 2.01
Consequences for the self 2.85 0.07 2.70 2.99
Consequences for others 1.80 0.07 1.67 1.93
Perspective
From other 2.29 0.05 2.19 2.39
From self 2.07 0.07 1.94 2.20
Note: N = 213.
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