As cold as a fish? Relationships between the Dark Triad personality traits and affective experience during the day: A day reconstruction study

The Dark Triad of personality is a cluster of three socially aversive personality traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. These traits are associated with a selfish, aggressive and exploitative interpersonal strategy. The objective of the current study was to establish relationships between the Dark Triad traits (and their dimensions) and momentary affect. Machiavellianism, grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism and the dimensions of the Triarchic model of psychopathy (namely, boldness, meanness and disinhibition) were examined. We used the Day Reconstruction Method, which is based on reconstructing affective states experienced during the previous day. The final sample consisted of 270 university students providing affective ratings of 3047 diary episodes. Analyses using multilevel modelling showed that only boldness had a positive association with positive affective states and affect balance, and a negative association with negative affective states. Grandiose narcissism and its sub-dimensions had no relationship with momentary affect. The other dark traits were related to negative momentary affect and/or inversely related to positive momentary affect and affect balance. As a whole, our results empirically demonstrated distinctiveness of the Dark Triad traits in their relationship to everyday affective states. These findings are not congruent with the notion that people with the Dark Triad traits, who have a dispositional tendency to manipulate and exploit others, are generally cold and invulnerable to negative feelings. The associations between the Dark Triad and momentary affect were discussed in the contexts of evolutionary and positive psychology, in relation to the role and adaptive value of positive and negative emotions experienced by individuals higher in Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy

Procedural Preferences, Perceptions of Fairness, and Compliance with Outcomes: A study of Alternatives to the Standard Adversary Trial Procedure

Mental health professionals (N=198) read a vignette describing malpractice case and were asked to imagine themselves in the role of defendant. Using a between-subjects design, each subject was offered two possible trial procedures for resolving the case, the standard adversary procedure (ADVERS) and one of five possible hybrid procedures. Using scales that juxtaposed these two procedures, subjects provided judgments on 12 procedural justice dimensions. A series of regression analyses examined the most important determinants of PREFERENCE judgments, FAIRNESS ratings, and ratings of imagined COMPLIANCE with trial outcomes. PREFERENCE raings were significantly influenced by perceived FAIRNESS of the procedures and by OUTCOME CONTROL. Perceived ACCURACY of the available trial procedures contributed most of the unique variance explained for dependent measures of FAIRNESS AND COMPLIANCE. Results are discussed in terms of the procedural justice attributes of alternatives to the standard adversary process for resolving medical malpractice cases

The Relation Between Self-Reported Psychopathic Traits and Distorted Response Styles: A Meta-Analytic Review

A concern among researchers is that self-report measures may not be valid indicators of psychopathic traits due to the core features of psychopathy (e.g., lying, deception/manipulation). The current study addresses this issue by combining effects sizes from studies published on or before March 31, 2010 to examine the relation between scores of 3 widely used self-report psychopathy measures-the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI; Lilienfeld & Andrews, 1996) and its revised version (PPI-R; Lilienfeld & Widows, 2005) and Levenson\u27s Self-Report Psychopathy scale (LSRP; Levenson, Kiehl, & Fitzpatrick, 1995) and scores on measures assessing response style (i.e., faking good and faking bad). Effect sizes were obtained from 45 studies for total, Factor 1, and Factor 2 scores (faking good: k = 54, 55, and 55, respectively; faking bad: k = 51, 50, and 50, respectively). Based on a random effects model, a significant negative association was found between social desirability/faking good and both total (r(w) = -.11, p \u3c .01) and F2 (r(w), = -.16, p \u3c .01) scores, and moderation analyses suggested that effect sizes varied as a function of psychopathy scale and validity scale used. Significant positive associations were also found between faking bad and both total (r(w) = .27, p \u3c .05) and F2 (r(w) = .32, p \u3c .05) scores. Also, moderation analyses suggested that effect sizes varied as a function of study location, psychopathy scale, and validity scale. Despite several limitations (e.g., inclusion of only published studies, limited moderators, exclusion of other measures), the general findings temper concerns of positive response bias and underscore the validity of self-report psychopathy scales