Dark Personality Traits

Dark personality traits is an umbrella term for an open set of personality traits that are perceived as “socially aversive” and/or “exploitative” that has emerged in the literature over that last decades. Of course, it remains a contentious issue what aspects of personality exactly qualify as “socially aversive” and “exploitative” and therefore as a member of this set. Some consensus has been reached, though, that at least the traits of the dark triad (including psychopathy, machiavellianism, and narcissism) are part of the set. A general dark factor of personality has also been proposed as an overarching common factor for the set that may also describe underlying mechanisms and processes in this domain. The question of how dark personality traits fit into broader structures of personality has not been clarified yet, though. In fact, whether the dark personality contribute anything new to existing structures at all or if they are nothing but old wine in new skins is another contentious issue in this area of research.

Our activities in this field include research on single dark personality traits, in particular everyday sadism and narcissism. Here we focus on the theoretical contributions of the traits (definition, structure) and on reliable and valid measurement. In addition, we also investigate the broader dark factor and its relations to agreeableness and honesty-humility, as well as the differentiation of these traits.

Interested in collaborating with us? Considering a Bachelor or Master Thesis in Psychology or an internship in this area? Great! Please contact us -> Prof. Dr. Ralf Schulze & Dr. Markus Jansen