The Dark Cube: dark character profiles and OCEAN

Introduction

Dark Triad Theory indicates that people’s malevolent character consists of three traits: Machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism, and subclinical psychopathy (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Machiavellianism is characterized by cynicism, manipulativeness (Jones & Paulhus, 2009), a cynical worldview, and lack of morality (Christie & Geis, 1970), narcissism is characterized by a tremendous sense of grandiosity, exploitativeness, and exhibitionism but, at the same time, a vulnerable self-esteem (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001), thus having problems with criticism (Raskin & Hall, 1979), and psychopathy is characterized by low empathy, low conscientiousness, low anxiety, and high impulsive and high thrill-seeking behavior (Furnham, Richards & Paulhus, 2013; Hare, 1985). Although the Dark Triad traits have one thing in common, namely unagreeableness (Garcia et al., 2015; Garcia & Rosenberg, 2016; Kajonius et al., 2016), these malevolent character traits are suggested as overlapping but distinctive enough to warrant separate measurement (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Subclinical studies have, for example, used personality models, such as the Big Five, to give a comprehensive view of these malevolent traits (González, 2015). The Big Five is a group of fundamental dimensions of personality often shortened as OCEAN: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (Costa Jr, McCrae & Dye, 1991). These five relatively independent dimensions of personality are suggested to provide a meaningful taxonomy for studying individual differences (John & Srivastava, 1999; see also Lee & Ashton, 2013).

Individuals who score high in any of the three Dark Triad traits score low in agreeableness, individuals who score high in psychopathy and narcissism score high on extraversion and openness, while individuals high in Machiavellianism and psychopathy score low in conscientiousness (e.g., Paulhus & Williams, 2002). These associations are in line with a unified view of the dark traits, that is, suggesting at least a common unagreeable core for the three traits (Jakobwitz & Egan, 2006; Paulhus & Williams, 2002; Garcia & Rosenberg, 2016). Nevertheless, while some researchers have confirmed these results using different samples (e.g., Lee & Ashton, 2005), other researchers have not (e.g., Jakobwitz & Egan, 2006). At the multivariate level, the Big Five traits together seem to account for between 18% and 39% of the variance in the Dark Triad traits, again indicating only a moderate amount of overlap between OCEAN and the Dark Triad (see Vernon et al., 2008). In other words, even if there are some correlations between the Dark Triad and the Big Five, these are neither large nor consistent, except for agreeableness (Vernon et al., 2008).

These inconsistencies complicate the further exploration of the Dark Triad as a theory because the Dark Triad has not shown reliable correlations with available models (Veselka, Schermer & Vernon, 2011). Additionally, some researchers indicate that the three dark traits load on a single factor that explains 64% of variance in the traits (Lyons & Rice, 2014; see also Garcia & Rosenberg, 2016; Kajonius et al., 2016, who suggested a dyad instead of a ternary structure). That being said, most research has used linear assumptions between the two models at hand (i.e., the Dark Triad and the Big Five). Personality is instead better understood as a dynamic complex adaptive system (see among others Cloninger, 2004). Essentially, not all individuals who score high in psychopathy might score high in, for example, extraversion and high levels of extraversion might lead to different expressions of malevolent character, that is, both psychopathy and/or narcissism. Moreover, the extrovert behavior of an individual high in both psychopathy and extroversion might differ depending on her/his level of Machiavellianism and narcissism. In other words, seeing personality as a dynamic complex adaptive system entails a person-centered approach in which an individual is not only adapting to the environment through her/his malevolent behavior, but also to the traits within the being–that is, the notion of the individual as whole system unit which is best studied by analyzing patterns of information or profiles (Bergman & Wångby, 2014). Although at a theoretical level there is a myriad of probable patterns of combinations of individuals’ levels of dark character traits, if viewed at a global level, there should be a small number of more frequently observed patterns or “common types” (Bergman & Wångby, 2014; Bergman & Magnusson, 1997). Indeed, the development of character is best explained by nonlinear dynamics in complex adaptive systems that have led to a triune model or a character cube (Cloninger, Svrakic & Svrakic, 1997).

In this train of thought, Garcia & Rosenberg (2016) have presented an analogy to Cloninger’s character cube (Cloninger, 2004), the dark cube, as a model of malevolent character to investigate conditional correlations by comparing, for example, OCEAN traits between individuals who differ in one dark trait while holding the other two constant (e.g., a profile characterized by high levels of Machiavellianism/low levels of narcissism/high levels of psychopathy vs. a profile characterized by low levels of Machiavellianism/low levels of narcissism/high levels of psychopathy). The character cube proposed by Cloninger has its basis on a biopsychosocial theory of human personality, which suggests the development of human personality as a result of the development of different regions in what has become the human brain. This research suggests that human character has a ternary structure: self-directedness (self-concept), cooperativeness (concept of relations with others), and self-transcendence (concept of our participation in the world as a whole) (Cloninger & Garcia, 2015; Garcia et al., 2017b; Garcia et al., 2017c; Garcia et al., 2017a; Cloninger, 2007; Garcia et al., 2017d). More than 30 years of research have confirmed the nonlinear dynamics of personality development, such as equifinality and multifinality,¹ and that the stepwise development of character determines large differences between individuals in their risk of psychopathology, as well as varying degrees of maturity and health that are best conceptualized as eight character profiles or the character cube (Cloninger, 2004; Cloninger, 2006; Cloninger, 2013; Cloninger, Svrakic & Svrakic, 1997).

Accordingly, the dark character cube theorizes all eight possible combinations of high/low scores in Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy (see Fig. 1). One caveat here is that although the cube is based on Cloninger’s theory of human character, we only make the assumption, based on the Dark Triad literature, that dark or malevolent character is ternary in nature. Nevertheless, far from the mixed patterns using the Big Five traits (e.g., Jakobwitz & Egan, 2006; Paulhus & Williams, 2002), the first attempt to use the Dark Cube as a model of malevolent character, suggested that Machiavellianism and psychopathy share a unified but unique non-agentic (low self-directedness) and non-communal (low cooperativeness) character; while narcissism has a unique character configuration expressed as high agency (high self-directedness). That being said, the Dark Triad seems to lack a dark trait that corresponds uniquely to a spiritual dimension of human character (i.e., self-transcendence)² (Garcia & Rosenberg, 2016). In the present study, we move forward the investigation of the Dark Cube as a model of malevolent character by investigating the associations between people’s dark character and the Big Five traits. This study provides new data analysis for testing these associations by investigating differences between dark character profiles and openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (i.e., OCEAN). Specifically, the use of the Dark Cube profiles (i.e., the combination of high/low in the three Dark Triad character traits) allows the comparison of individuals who differ in one dark character trait, while holding the other two constant.

Method

Results

As a first analysis, we correlated participants’ scores in the dark traits with their scores in the Big Five (see Table 1). The significant correlations between Machiavellianism and OCEAN were to conscientiousness (r =  − .16, p < .01), agreeableness ( r =  − .43, p < .01), and neuroticism (r = .19, p < .01). Narcissism was associated to openness (r = .17, p < .01), extraversion (r = .46, p < .001), and neuroticism ( r =  − .18, p < .01). Finally, psychopathy was associated to conscientiousness (r =  − .31, p < .01), extraversion ( r = .14, p < .05), and agreeableness (r =  − .51, p < .001). Importantly, the only associations above ±.20⁵ were Machiavellianism-agreeableness, narcissism-extraversion, and psychopathy-agreeableness. As a second analysis, we conducted the same analysis between the dark traits and OCEAN controlling for gender, since the dark traits differ between males and females (e.g.,Garcia, MacDonald & Rapp-Ricciardi, 2017). Nevertheless, the correlations were almost similar (see Table 1).

As in earlier studies (e.g., Cloninger & Zohar, 2011; Garcia & Rosenberg, 2016), paired t-tests were performed to evaluate the conditional relationships between each of the Dark Triad and the Big Five traits. The comparisons investigated the effect of extremes of each Dark Triad trait when the other two were held constant (see Table 2 for the details). The only two clear associations were found between high narcissism and high extraversion and between high psychopathy and low agreeableness. These findings are in line with the correlation analyses above. However, the rest of the results were complex interactions and not necessarily in line with a unified view of the dark traits or simple linear associations between the Big Five and the Dark Triad traits.

Discussion

In the present study, we used the Dark Cube profiles to investigate conditional relationships between dark character and OCEAN. Specifically, the eight possible combinations of individuals’ high/low scores in the three Dark Triad character traits were used to investigate differences in OCEAN between individuals who differ in one dark character trait, while holding the other two constant. In essence, our results showed that the relationship between one dark trait and OCEAN is valid only under certain conditions, that is, depending on individual scores in the other two dark traits. The only OCEAN traits associated to malevolent character in any condition or dark character combination were extraversion-narcissism, suggesting that an individual high in narcissism would independently of the other two dark traits always behave as an extrovert, and psychopathy-agreeableness, suggesting that an individual high in psychopathy would independently of the other two dark traits always behave disagreeable. In other words, our findings might (1) explain the mixed and inconsistent associations between dark traits and OCEAN and (2) suggest that at least for individuals high in narcissism or high in psychopathy, introvert and agreeable behavior, respectively, might depend of external conditions rather than her/his own character combination (cf. Birkás et al., 2016, who show that anxiety is related to malevolent character under specific conditions). Next, we detail and describe the significant associations between the Dark Triad and each OCEAN trait.

High levels of Machiavellianism were associated to low levels of conscientiousness, low levels of extraversion, low levels of agreeableness, and high levels neuroticism only when both narcissism and psychopathy were low (Mnp vs. mnp). In other words, these results suggest that, as long as the other two malevolent traits are low, high levels of Machiavellianism would lead to low sense of competence, disorderliness, low dutifulness, low self-discipline (i.e., low levels of conscientiousness), low degree of displayed affection, low experience of positive emotions, low need of social affiliation (i.e., low levels of extravertion), low levels of trust in others, low degrees of sincerity, unhelpfulness, aggressive behavior, arrogance, low empathy (i.e., low levels of agreeableness), and proneness to worry, rumination, hostility, sadness, hopelessness, impulsiveness, and sensitivity in social situations (i.e., high levels of neuroticism). In addition, low levels of agreeableness were also associated to high Machiavellianism when psychopathy was also high but narcissism was low (MnP vs. mnP). In short, these results are partially in line with past research, however, only under the following conditions: both narcissism and psychopathy are low and in the case of agreeableness also when narcissism was low at the same time that psychopathy was high. Hence, for other combinations, high levels of Machiavellianism do not show a straightforward relationship to OCEAN. This is surprising, because most research suggest that low agreeableness is the common core of the dark traits (e.g., Jakobwitz & Egan, 2006; Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Even the correlation analyses in our study suggested a high Machiavellianism-low agreeableness correlation. Our analyses, however, suggest that under certain conditions individuals high in Machiavellianism might or might not develop agreeableness.

With the exception of its relation to extraversion, the results with regard to narcissism presented a more complex interaction with OCEAN. For example, narcissism was associated to high openness when both Machiavellianism and psychopathy were also high (MNP vs. MnP) and when both Machiavellianism and psychopathy were low (mNp vs. mnp). High levels of narcissism were associated to low levels of neuroticism in most of the cases but not associated at all when Machiavellianism was low and psychopathy was high (mNP vs. mnP). That is, individuals with a “psychopathic narcissistic” profile (mNP) might or might not have a proneness to worry, rumination, hostility, sadness, hopelessness, impulsiveness, and sensitivity in social situations (i.e., high levels of neuroticism; see for example the results mNP vs. mNp in Table 2). Interestingly, psychopathy has been found to correlate negatively to neuroticism (e.g., Paulhus & Williams, 2002) and negative affect (Love & Holder, 2014), which is almost synonymous with neuroticism (e.g., Tellegen, 1993; Watson, Clark & Tellegen, 1988). Nevertheless, some studies have not replicated the link high psychopathy-low neuroticism (Veselka, Schermer & Vernon, 2012; Garcia et al., 2015). The findings presented here, however, suggest that both high and low neuroticism might be found in individuals high in psychopathy, hence suggesting the probability of both an emotionally stable and a emotionally instable psychopath. For instance, recent research suggests that anxiety, a state usually experienced by individuals high in neuroticism, is related to malevolent character under specific conditions (Birkás et al., 2016). In addition, high levels of narcissism were associated to high levels of conscientiousness when both Machiavellianism and psychopathy were high at the same time (MNP vs MnP). At this point, as long as the other two traits are high, high levels of narcissism are associated to high openness (i.e., proneness to imagination, appreciation of beauty, receptiveness to emotions, novelty seeking, and inquisitiveness), high conscientiousness, high extraversion, and low neuroticism. In other words, under these conditions, individuals with a “maleficent” profile (MNP) are better fitted to manipulate interpersonal relations with what might be interpreted as more social and adaptive abilities. We see this as manipulation and not true cooperative character, since the “maleficent” profile has been associated to low levels of two important measures of individuals goals and values: self-directedness (i.e., self-acceptance, self-fulfillment, goal-directedness) and cooperativeness (i.e., helpfulness, empathy, tolerance towards others, kindness) (Garcia & Rosenberg, 2016).

Finally, as earlier stated, psychopathy was the only dark trait with a clear association to agreeableness that was consistent with the general idea of the Dark Triad having a common core: unagreeablness (e.g., Garcia et al., 2015; Garcia & Rosenberg, 2016; Kajonius et al., 2016). As in past studies using, high levels of psychopathy were associated to low levels of conscientiousness in most of the cases. The only exception was when both Machiavellianism and narcissism were high (MNP vs. MNp). That is, an individual high in psychopathy might or might not be conscientious when the other two malevolent character traits are high (see for example the results between MNP vs. MnP in Table 2). In addition, as detailed earlier, high levels of psychopathy were associated to high levels of neuroticism when Machiavellianism was low and narcissism was high (mNP vs. nNP).

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