The Dark Triad and dispositional aggression

a r t i c l e i n f o Previous research has demonstrated that people who are callous are more likely to be interpersonally aggressive. The present study extends this finding to research on the " Dark Triad " traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy), which all share a common core of callousness and manipulation. Using crowd-sourcing and student samples, we examined the relationship between the Dark Triad traits with different facets of dispositional aggression. Results indicated that a common Dark Triad factor (i.e., callousness and manipulation) predicted a common aggression factor. However, the individual Dark Triad traits uniquely predicted different facets of aggression. Psychopathy positively predicted physical aggression, narcissism negatively predicted hostility, and Machiavellianism positively predicted hostility. Taken together, the findings shed light on the unique elements of the Dark Triad and their ability to predict unique forms of dispositional aggression., it seems logical that each Dark Triad trait would be related to self-reported aggression. Although all three Dark Triad traits are high in callousness and manipulation, it is important to examine the differences in their motivations and behavioral expressions (Jones & Figueredo, 2013). Consequently , there are significant problems with assuming all three Dark Triad traits are similar with respect to aggression. For example, why would a strategic trait such as Machiavellianism (see Jones & Paulhus, 2009) be related to dispositional tendencies toward direct aggression? One answer may lie with misinterpretations due to the spurious overlap among dispositional traits Ashton et al. (2009) argued that traits sharing an unbalanced overlap may appear as though they are each contributing to an outcome or higher order factor when they are not. Instead, it is the common overlap that may be driving associations with outcomes, but the individual traits may be overall unrelated (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). In addition to oversimplifications driven by spurious associations (Ashton et al., 2009), behavioral evidence suggests that Machiavellian-ism has no unique association with aggressive responses to direct or ego-provocation (Jones & Paulhus, 2010a). In contrast, psychopathy has a long history of predicting aggression and violent offending (Hare, 1996). For example, individuals high in psychopathy are quick to anger, yet are just as quick to return to baseline (see Hare, 1999, for review). Additionally, psychopathy is universally recognized, in three (Cooke & Michie, 2001) and four-factor models (Hare & Neumann, 2005), as being associated with an erratic lifestyle and deficits in impulse-control. Their inability to …