Neither the dark triad nor general intelligence are meaningfully related to lying ability

The ability to lie and its relations to the dark triad and general intelligence. Moritz Michels, Günter Molz, Frederic Maas. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 166, 1 November 2020, 110195. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110195

Abstract: The dark triad of personality (D3) – psychopathy, machiavellianism, and narcissism – is commonly conceived to be related to manipulative and deceptive abilities and is often regarded as an exploitative behavioral strategy. Some authors argue that the effectiveness of this strategy is moderated by other variables, e.g. intelligence. In our study participants prepared three short stories about personal incidences: Two had to be true and one had to be non-factual. The subjects told their stories in a laboratory setting while being videotaped. The SRP-4, the MACH VI and the NARQ were used to measure the dark triad. General intelligence was assessed with the WAIS-IV. Subsequently, raters judged which of the three stories was the non-factual one. In conclusion, participants' lying ability was operationalized by the number of raters not succeeding to identify the non-factual story. We tested if (a) the D3 and (b) intelligence were correlated with lying ability, and (c) the D3-lying-ability-relation was moderated by intelligence. The results indicated that neither the dark triad nor general intelligence are meaningfully related to lying ability and that general intelligence does not moderate the D3-lying-ability-relation. Our results challenge the view that the D3-traits enable individuals to exploit their social environment effectively.

Keywords: IntelligenceDark triadManipulationLying ability