The Light vs. Dark Triad of Personality: Contrasting Two Very Different Profiles of Human Nature

The Light vs. Dark Triad of Personality: Contrasting Two Very Different Profiles of Human Nature. Scott Barry Kaufman, David Bryce Yaden, Elizabeth Hyde and Eli Tsukayama. Front. Psychol., March 12 2019. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00467

Abstract: While there is a growing literature on “dark traits” (i.e., socially aversive traits), there has been a lack of integration with the burgeoning research literature on positive traits and fulfilling and growth-oriented outcomes in life. To help move the field toward greater integration, we contrasted the nomological network of the Dark Triad (a well-studied cluster of socially aversive traits) with the nomological network of the Light Triad, measured by the 12-item Light Triad Scale (LTS). The LTS is a first draft measure of a loving and beneficent orientation toward others (“everyday saints”) that consists of three facets: Kantianism (treating people as ends unto themselves), Humanism (valuing the dignity and worth of each individual), and Faith in Humanity (believing in the fundamental goodness of humans). Across four demographically diverse samples (N = 1,518), the LTS demonstrated excellent reliability and validity, predicting life satisfaction and a wide range of growth-oriented and self-transcendent outcomes above and beyond existing measures of personality. In contrast, the Dark Triad was negatively associated with life satisfaction and growth-oriented outcomes, and showed stronger linkages to selfish, exploitative, aggressive, and socially aversive outcomes. This exploratory study of the contrasting nomological networks of the Light vs. Dark Triad provides several ways forward for more principled and data driven approaches to explore both the malevolent and beneficent sides of human nature.

Discussion

Across four studies including a wide range of positive and negative outcomes, the Light Triad Scale (LTS) was found to be a reliable and valid measure of a loving and beneficent orientation toward others. While the Light Triad contrasts with the callous and manipulative orientation of the Dark Triad, the Light Triad was not merely the inverse of the Dark Triad. It appears that at least in terms of personality, the absence of darkness does not necessarily indicate the presence of light. As with the literature on positive and negative emotions (Diener and Emmons, 1984; Watson et al., 1988), there appears to be some degree of independence between the Light and Dark Triad, leaving room for people to have a mix of both light and dark traits.

With that said, the Light Triad diverged from the Dark Triad across numerous outcomes drawn from both the Dark Triad and well-being literatures and tended to show stronger outcomes with self-transcendent and growth-fostering outcomes relative to the Dark Triad. Below, we’ll go into greater detail on the contrasting nomological networks of the Light vs. Dark Triad, thereby painting overall portraits of these two very different profiles of human nature.

Portraits of the Light vs. Dark Triad

First, we replicated a number of findings in the Dark Triad literature and extended these findings to the Light Triad. For example, it has been found that Dark Triad traits are correlated with greater childhood unpredictability (Jonason et al., 2013, 2016), aggression (Pailing et al., 2014; Dinic and Wertag, 2018; Knight et al., 2018; Paulhus et al., 2018), utilitarian moral judgment (Djeriouat and Tremoliere, 2014), selfishness, power, money, and sociosexuality (Jonason et al., 2008; Jonason and Buss, 2012; Lee et al., 2013; Kajonius et al., 2015; Jonason and Ferrell, 2016; Balakrishna et al., 2017), and immature defense styles (Richardson and Boag, 2016). We replicated these findings and also found that the Light Triad is significantly correlated with the inverse of these outcomes.

Second, by also investigating a number of growth-fostering and well-being-related outcomes, we could see an overall pattern of findings that paints two very different portraits of humanity. We found that the Dark Triad was positively correlated with being younger, being male, being motivated by power, sex, achievement, and affiliation, having self-enhancement values, immature defense styles, conspicuous consumption, selfishness, and creative work and religious immortality as routes to death transcendence. The Dark Triad was negatively correlated with life satisfaction, conscientiousness, agreeableness, self-transcendent values, compassion, empathy, a quiet ego, a belief that humans are good, and a belief that one’s own self is good.

The Dark Triad was not associated with exclusively adverse and transgressive psychosocial outcomes, however, and some of the correlates of the dark triad may be considered adaptive, at least in limited contexts or “dark niches” (Paulhus, 2014). One example is our replication of the well-known link between the Dark Triad and short-term instrumental sociosexuality (Jonason et al., 2008). Researchers have suggested that the Dark Triad may have evolved precisely because of the reproductive benefits it conferred on our distant ancestors (particularly men) with these Dark Triad characteristics (Jonason et al., 2008). Regardless of the veracity of this evolutionary argument, depending on one’s goals, and the compatibility of those goals with one’s desired sexual partners, high sociosexuality is not necessarily an aversive psychosocial outcome.

The Dark Triad also showed positive correlations with a variety of variables that could facilitate one’s more agentic-related goals. For instance, the Dark Triad was positively correlated with utilitarian moral judgment and the VIA strengths of creativity, bravery, and leadership, as well as assertiveness, in addition to motives for power, achievement, and self-enhancement. Also, an unexpected correlation between the Dark Triad and curiosity was found, which was localized primarily to the embracing and deprivation forms of curiosity.

Interestingly, after controlling for Agreeableness and HEXACO Honesty-Humility, the Dark Triad demonstrated positive associations with various growth-oriented outcomes (e.g., empathy, compassion, quiet ego, and spiritual experience) that were negatively related to the Dark Triad before these antagonistic traits were partialed out. These findings suggest that the callous and manipulative core of the Dark Triad does not do these individuals many favors. It’s likely that the variance that is leftover once the malevolence-related variance of the Dark Triad is removed is associated with agentic extraversion, which may provide a protective factor for those scoring higher on the Dark Triad. This is in line with recent research on narcissism that explicitly separates the antagonistic and agentic extraversion facets of narcissism in predicting well-being (e.g., Kaufman et al., 2018).

In stark contrast, the overall picture provided by the pattern of correlations with the Light Triad was quite different than the Dark Triad. The Light Triad was associated with being older, being female, less childhood unpredictability, as well as higher levels of religiosity, spirituality, life satisfaction, acceptance of others, belief that others are good, belief that one’s self is good, compassion, empathy, openness to experience, conscientiousness, positive enthusiasm, having a quiet ego, and a belief that one can live on through nature and biosociality (having children) after one’s personal death. It is notable that the correlation between the belief that others are good and the Light Triad remained significant even after controlling for Big Five Agreeableness, suggesting that— as initially expected— this belief may be a particularly unique aspect of the Light Triad. Also note that we found a strong correlation between “Humans are Good” and the belief that “I am Good” (r = 0.51, p < 0.001, n = 194). This correlation might be worthy of further investigation in future studies.

Individuals scoring higher on the LTS also reported more satisfaction with their relationships, competence, and autonomy, and they also reported higher levels of secure attachment style and eros in their relationships. In general, the light triad was related to being primarily motivated by intimacy and self-transcendent values. Many character strengths correlated with the Light Triad, including curiosity, perspective, zest, love, kindness, teamwork, forgiveness, and gratitude. Note that the flavor of curiosity associated with Light Triad (primarily stretching) differed from the flavor of curiosity associated with the Dark Triad (primarily embracing and deprivation). Mature defense styles were also associated with the Light Triad, as were optimistic beliefs about the self, the world, and one’s future, as measured by the Beck’s cognitive triad. Individuals scoring higher on the LTS also reported higher self-esteem, authenticity, and a stronger sense of self.

In general, the Light Triad does not appear to be associated with any obvious downsides, with a few possible exceptions depending on the context. The Light Triad was not associated with assertiveness, and was negatively correlated with the motives for achievement and self-enhancement (even though the Light Triad was positively related to productivity and competence). In terms of character strengths, unlike the Dark Triad, the Light Triad was uncorrelated with bravery or assertiveness. Such characteristics may be important for reaching one’s more challenging goals and fully self-actualizing. Additionally, in line with our predictions, the Light Triad was related to greater interpersonal guilt— including survivor, separation, and omnipotence forms of guilt. While it may be adaptive to experience these forms of interpersonal guilt for facilitating relationships and repairing damage in a relationship, these forms of guilt may limit one’s ambitions for fear of succeeding while others remain less successful.

The Light Triad was also correlated with greater “reaction formation,” which consisted of the following items: “If someone mugged me and stole my money, I’d rather he be helped than punished” and “I often find myself being very nice to people who by all rights I should be angry at.” While having such “loving-kindness” even for one’s enemies is conducive to one’s own well-being (see Salzberg, 2017), these attitudes, coupled with greater interpersonal guilt, could make those scoring higher on the Light Triad potentially more open to exploitation and emotional manipulation from those scoring higher on the Dark Triad. Indeed, we believe further investigation of the social interactions between extreme light vs. dark triad scorers would be an interesting future line of research.

Nevertheless, taking all of these patterns together, the Light Triad appears correlated with a greater quality of life overall than the Dark Triad across numerous dimensions of well-being and growth. Again, we’d like to emphasize that no one is all Light or Dark Triad, and we each differ in our balance of these traits. Nevertheless, it should also be noted that the average light-dark balance showed a substantial skew toward the light side of personality, and extreme malevolence was rare in the samples we studied. Indeed, research has shown that, in general, people tend to view the ‘true’ self in others as both good and moral (Strohminger et al., 2017). Anne Frank may have been on to something in her quote at the beginning of this paper.

Limitations

This study was limited in a number of ways. First, in the same tradition of the literature on the Dark Triad, the Light Triad was measured through self-report. While we do not see this as problematic in establishing a new construct, we would like to see more unobtrusive and behavioral measures of both the Light Triad and Dark Triad. For this reason, we included a dictator game that involved the distribution of real money, but more behavioral tasks would provide stronger evidence for the validity of these constructs.

Second, all participants were recruited from paid online survey platforms. While research has shown that the data collected from the platforms we used are generally representative (Buhrmester et al., 2011; Peer et al., 2017), we think a fuller confirmation of the validity of both the Light Triad and Dark Triad would benefit from the investigation of more ecologically valid samples, such as criminals and “saints.” Additionally, further research is required to assess the generalizability of the findings to a wider range of cultures (e.g., non-English speaking countries), as well as races and ethnicities.

Third, construct redundancy is an issue. The same researchers who are not interested in the extra predictive validity of the Dark Triad over and above the inverse Agreeableness and the HEXACO Honesty-Humility facet will likely not be interested in the Light Triad. On the other hand, those conducting more granular research on the Dark Triad may be interested in the differences described in this paper. Additionally, those interested in well-being and positive mental processes more generally may be interested in the Light Triad. This study took the debate about whether the Dark Triad provides additional explanatory power seriously, controlling for these traits in various analyses. We found that many of the stronger first-order correlations with the Light Triad remained significant, though at a much smaller effect size, demonstrating the added predictive validity offered by the Light Triad. Also notably, Honesty-Humility was more strongly correlated with the inverse of the Dark Triad than with the Light Triad, while the Light Triad was more strongly correlated with Agreeableness than with Honesty-Humility, suggesting further divergence between these two constructs.

Future Directions

There are several future directions for research on the Light Triad. Most pressingly, further studies should replicate our findings demonstrating that the Light Triad Scale (LTS) provides useful information over and above the inverse of existing measures of the Dark Triad, Big Five Agreeableness, and the HEXACO Honesty-Humility facet.

Second, as noted above, further research on this topic might benefit from a greater focus on behavioral outcomes, demonstrating that these measures predict differences in behavior between predominantly Light Triad individuals as opposed to predominantly Dark Triad individuals. We believe that the workplace might be a particularly interesting context to explore the effects of Dark Triad and Light Triad individuals on teams, and their relative effects on levels of satisfaction and performance.

Third, research could be done on the occupations and life outcomes associated with the Light vs. Dark triad. Some research has found that individuals with Dark Triad traits are often skilled at climbing organizational hierarchies and negatively impact those around them (Mathieu et al., 2014). What kinds of occupations are most attractive to Light Triad individuals?

Fourth, there is also the question of intervention. Is it possible to enhance Light Triad characteristics? In the current investigation, we found a strong link between the Light Triad and the four main characteristics of a quiet ego: perspective-taking, inclusive identity, detached awareness, and growth-mindedness. Researchers are developing exercises to enhance these characteristics (e.g., Wayment and Bauer, 2017), and it’s an interesting question whether such interventions would also have an effect on Light Triad scores. We also found some evidence that experiences of unity, or self-transcendent experiences (STEs; Yaden et al., 2017a), are positively (though less strongly) correlated with the Light Triad. This raises the possibility that certain kinds of experiences could potentially influence these personality traits. While this is unknown, we believe this would be an exciting area of further study.

Fifth, there is the question of framing. In general, research on this topic ought to be a largely a descriptive endeavor. While we have attempted to be balanced in the foregoing discussion, there is little doubt that we believe that Light Triad individuals are more enjoyable to be around and likely exert a more positive net effect on the world. We acknowledge, however, that it is not our place to moralize these two sub-clinical, interpersonal orientations. Future research should bear this descriptive imperative in mind, and researchers may prefer alternative frameworks to describe the nomological network of these two interpersonal orientations. One alternative framework that is popular within the Dark Triad literature is life history strategy, which employs more neutral labels such as “fast” vs. “slow,” rather than our framing of “adverse” vs. “growth-oriented” (e.g., Jonason et al., 2012b). Therefore, we acknowledge that the overall patterns of results could be interpreted within multiple frameworks in psychology.

Sixth, while the focus of this paper was on the suite of traits that comprise the dark vs. light triad, future research is needed on the differential prediction of the three facets of the LTS: Kantianism, Humanism, and Faith in Humanity. Until such validation and/or further scale development is done, we recommend that researchers focus on the total score of the LTS, as the current studies showed that overall, the LTS is a brief, reliable, and valid measure of an important core of positive traits.

Nevertheless, the current version of the LTS included in these investigations should be viewed as a first-draft, and further studies on a wider range of cultures and over longer stretches of time will have to be conducted to improve the generalizability, reliability, stability, and validity of the Light Triad. Also, while the brevity of the LTS has its advantages, it might not be sufficient to explore the breadth of the Light Triad facets that we discovered. In future work, it might be helpful to go back to a larger pool of items and construct a longer measure.

Finally, just as the scope of dark traits has recently increased beyond the boundaries of the Dark Triad (see Moshagen et al., 2018; Paulhus et al., 2018), the scope of the Light Triad may have to eventually be broadened to include further facets of the positive personality. Since our method of constructing the Light Triad Scale (LTS) was based on a consideration of the conceptual contrast to the Dark Triad, we acknowledge that there could be additional aspects of human beneficence that are not captured by the LTS. Ultimately, a combination of top-down and bottom-approaches will be useful to derive the full breadth of facets that comprise the light personality or the “light character” (Cloninger and Zohar, 2011; Meindl et al., 2015; Garcia and Rosenberg, 2016).

While informing other empirical approaches to studying the moral character, we hope our conceptualization of the Light Triad can also inform a number of philosophical discussions of virtuous character and moral behavior (for a psychology-friendly review of this expansive philosophical literature, see Miller, 2013), as well as more specific philosophical discussions of certain drawbacks to such a temperament, as in Wolf’s (1982) notion of “moral saints” and Schwitzgebel’s (2014) distinction between “jerks” and “sweethearts.”