The dark factor of personality

Morten Moshagen

Abstract: Ethically and socially aversive behaviors cause severe challenges for societies at many levels. In personality research, such behaviors are often attributed to aversive ("dark") traits, most prominently the "dark triad" components—narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy—but indeed many more (such as greed, sadism, and spitefulness, to name a few). Given that aversive traits exhibit substantial conceptual, operational, and empirical overlap, the Dark Factor of Personality (D) has been proposed to represent the basic underlying disposition from which any more specific aversive trait arises as manifestation, thereby representing their commonalities. D is conceptualized as the general tendency to maximize one’s individual utility—disregarding, accepting, or malevolently provoking disutility for others—accompanied by beliefs that serve as justifications. The talk will elaborate on the theoretical conceptualization, summarize corresponding empirical evidence, and illustrate consequences of D.

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