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Dark triad of personality has been into limelight of research since early twentieth century. Initially the research in this area was limited to delinquent and criminal population but lately the focus shifted onto the normal population. Dark triad of personality is a group of three personality traits that are narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. All these traits are interpersonally aversive There has always been controversy over the empirical overlap between the members of dark triad, this research paper tries to explain dark triad of personality and prove that though there is empirical overlap between the members of dark triad still all the three are distinct constructs and different research work pertaining to this has been compiled in this paper. The paper also throws light on how the dark triad of personality lie on other personality scales such as big five and HEXACO model. Moreover the issue of potential interest in this paper is that negative traits are part and parcel of normal personality profile.
Keywords: narcissism, machiavellianism and psychopathy
Dark triad of personality is a group of three personality traits that are narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. All these traits are interpersonally aversive (Campbell et al., 2002).Dark triad of personality refers to those three personality constructs which are theoretically distinct but empirically overlap (Furuhun et al., 2011; Paulhus et al., 2002). The empirical overlapping between them is indicative that these three construct have something common between them.
The narcissistic personality in the clinical sense is defined as a personality characterized by lack of empathy, a sense of entitlement, grandiose self view and egotism. There are certain theorists like Heinz Kohut who associate this personality with the protection of damaged shamed and weak self (Kohutt, 1977). Narcissism is the oldest construct in dark triad and its origin can be traced to Greek myth of narcissus who was doomed to fall in love with his own reflection. The DSM IV-TR define narcissistic personality as,''pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration and lack of empathy which all begins by early adulthood and are present in a variety of contexts." narcissist view himself or herself as powerful, attractive, entitled, intelligent and unique (Buffardi et al., 2008)
Machiavellianism terms come from the name of Florentine diplomat Niccolo Machiavelli. It is characterised...