Expectancy biases underneath the Dark Triad traits : associations with optimism, pessimism, and hopelessness

Peter K. Jonason, Joshua D. Foster, Árpád Csathó, Valdiney Gouveia

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Personality traits play a key role in understanding optimism, but few studies have examined how “darker” aspects of personality relate to individual differences in trait-level optimism. We examined whether the Dark Triad traits (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism) were associated with individual differences in optimism in three convenience samples from America, Brazil, and Hungary (N = 937) using three measures of individual differences optimism (i.e., Life Orientation Test; Lerner Optimism Scale; Beck Hopelessness Scale). Our results were rather compelling in that across measures and countries sampled, narcissism was associated with more optimism whereas psychopathy and Machiavellianism were associated with less. Results are discussed in terms of how such outlooks or expectancies are likely to color the social interactions that people characterized by the Dark Triad traits engage in and the social consequences they may experience.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)190-194
Number of pages5
JournalPersonality and Individual Differences
Volume134
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2018

Keywords

  • Dark Triad
  • Machiavellianism (psychology)
  • narcissism
  • optimism
  • psychopathy

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