Are the dark personalities sincere? Connections between the Dark Triad and the Big Three

Abstract

Background There are different theories and models of personality. In the antisocial area, the model used is the Dark Triad, a model of personality composed of the traits of Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism. The links between the Dark Triad and other general models have been widely studied; however, there is little research connecting it with the traditional, but still used, model of personality described by Eysenck (psychoticism, extraversion, and neuroticism). Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyse the connections between the Dark Triad of personality and Eysenck’s personality model. Addi-tionally, we interpret the connections between the sincerity scale of Eysenck’s model and the Dark Triad. Participants and procedure Our final sample was composed of 2385 participants who completed different personality questionnaires measuring the Dark Triad and Eysenck’s model. Bivariate analyses and structural equation modelling were performed. Results Narcissism and Machiavellianism have positive connections with neuroticism and extraversion, whereas psychopathy is positively associated with psychoticism and negatively associated with extraversion. All the Dark Triad traits, mainly Machiavellianism, show the strongest connections with sincerity. Conclusions Considering the deceptive and manipulative nature of the Dark Triad, these results would imply that these traits could be mismeasured in some contexts. However, in research conditions those people who score higher on the Dark Tetrad traits do not hide behaviours that tend to be socially undesirable, implying some degree of honesty in their answers. Further efforts to develop more objective measures, such as implicit, indirect, task-based, or forced-choice measures, should be considered.