Individuals with dark traits have the ability to empathize, but have a low disposition to do so

Individuals with dark traits have the ability but not the disposition to empathize. Petri J. Kajonius, Therese Björkman. Personality and Individual Differences, November 30 2019, 109716. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109716

Highlights
• We tested if the Dark Triad was best described by ability- or trait-empathy.
• Dark Triad had no relationship with ability-empathy.
• Dark Triad had a strong negative relationship with trait-empathy.
• Cognitive ability explained ability-empathy.
• Dark personalities seem cognizant, but not inclined to empathize.

Abstract: Empathy is fundamental to social cognition and societal values. Empathy is theorized as having both the ability as well as the disposition to imagine the content of other people's minds. We tested whether the notorious low empathy in dark personalities (Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism; the Dark Triad) is best characterized by a lack of capacity (ability) or lack of disposition (trait). Data was collected for 278 international participants through an anonymous online survey shared on the online platform LinkedIn, consisting of trait-based Dark Triad personality (SD3) and empathy (IRI), and cognitive ability (ICAR16) and ability-based empathy (MET). Dark personality traits had no relationship with ability-based empathy, but strongly so with trait-based empathy (β = -0.47). Instead, cognitive ability explained ability-based empathy (β = 0.31). The finding is that dark personalities in a community sample is normally cognizant to empathize but has a low disposition to do so. This finding may help shed further light on how personality is interlinked with ability.

Keywords: PersonalityDark triadEmpathyCognitive ability


From the introduction: Empathy is a core feature of human beings in social interaction (Myyrya, Juujärvi, & Pesso, 2010). No matter where in the world we live, individuals in any given community are expected to be able to cognizant and sensitive to other people's minds. Individuals who violate such values are often looked down upon in society (Persson & Kajonius, 2016). In personality psychology, there has been an increase of interest in so-called dark personality traits (Moshagen, Hilbig, & Zettler, 2018), which are characterized by violating social values (Kajonius, Persson, & Jonason, 2015). The idea behind the most used Dark Triad personality model (DT; Paulhus & Williams, 2002) is to capture the multidimensionality of complex traits leading up to this, and that these can be described by subclinical Machiavellianism (tendency to manipulate), psychopathy (callousness), and narcissism (grandiosity) (Jonason & Kroll, 2015). It is still unclear whether individuals scoring high on these dark personality traits are mostly lacking the capacity (ability) or mostly lacking the disposition (trait) to feel what others feel (see Keysers & Gazzola, 2014). The purpose of the present study is to explore empathy and to test the idea that it is not inability but more a lack of disposition that drives dark personalities’ low empathy.


4. Discussion

The present study aimed at investigating whether persons scoring high on the Dark Triad (Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism) mostly relate to the lack of ability or the lack of disposition to empathize. The results showed that it was more a lack of empathic disposition than inability that characterizes dark personalities. First, the Dark Triad had a very strong relationship with dispositional trait-based empathy. Second, the Dark Triad had a weak (almost non-existent) relationship with ability-based empathy. Third, cognitive ability explained most of ability-based empathy.

The first hypothesis of the present study were largely in line with previous research, which mainly has shown a consistent negative relationship between dark personality and trait-based empathy (BaronCohen, Wheelwright, Hill, Raste, & Plumb, 2001; Jonason, Lyons, Bethell, & Ross, 2013; Pajevic et al., 2018). The relationship between higher Dark Triad (SD3) and lower trait-based empathy (IRI) was large (Fig. 1). This effect size is trending towards high convergence, even more so if controlled for reliability and subscale variance – According to updated guidelines in psychology research, correlations between r = 0.00–0.09 should be interpreted as trivial to non-existent, r = 0.10–0.19 weak, r = 0.20–0.29 medium, and above r > 0.30 strong (Gignac & Szodorai, 2016). Interestingly, lack of empathy as measured by IRI entails not only lack empathic concern, but also no imagination for others’ minds (FT), not being cognizant in perspective taking (PT), and no distress for others’ welfare (PD). This result confirms the general notion that the Dark Triad and dispositions towards empathy are related negatively (Wai & Tiliopoulos, 2012).

Conceivably, a somewhat novel finding is the non-significant relationship between the Dark Triad and ability-based empathy in the present study, confirming the second hypothesis. Among the sparse studies on the subject, Wai and Tiliopoulos (2012) similarly found no connection. The measurement of MET indicates that dark personalities are more or less normally distributed in relation to the ability of reading emotions in faces. In our community sample, the popular notion of an intelligent, cunning psychopath or narcissist being a master-mind in capacity of reading people was not found in evidence. Similarly, the opposite notion of an impulsive thug incapable of interpreting people's faces cannot be supported. Interestingly, there seems to be almost no relationship between ability-based empathy (MET) and the subscales of trait-based empathy (IRI), as seen in Table 1. The present study seems to support the notion that ability and traits are very different empathy constructs.

Moreover, cognitive ability clearly governed ability-based empathy (Fig. 1). Individuals’ cognitive ability (ICAR) overlapped with the ability to read people's emotions through facial expressions (MET). This may not be all too surprising since general intelligence (aka the Gfactor) is known to permeate most psychological domains related to mental performance (Nisbett et al., 2012). Perhaps somewhat unexpected, a small positive relationship between the Dark Triad and cognitive ability was also found in the present study. If anything, this should according to literature be close to zero or even negative. Apart from having been a spurious result (n.b. this was only marginally significant, p = .04), one explanation is that being smart and slightly antagonistic may very well have been one of the characteristics of someone choosing to partake in a study on dark personalities, slightly increasing this correlation. Based on the tested model, it seems clear that the higher the cognitive ability, the higher the ability to read other's emotions, but also that this is likely unrelated to dark personalities.