Our consumer behavior says a lot about who we are. But the psychology of personality teaches us that this cuts both ways: Who we are can also say a lot about how and what we buy. And when it comes to personality, not everything is roses. The dark side of human nature teaches us a lot about decision-making, impulse control, and consumer psychology. This piece, written by Behavioral Scientist, Laura Detter provides insights into consumerism through the lens of the Dark Triad.

What is the Dark Triad?

The Dark Triad is a term used to describe three theoretically distinct personality profiles that are commonly studied together due to the shared malevolence of their traits. The members include Psychopathy, Narcissism and Machiavellianism–a lethal gang to encounter. The infamous trio is collectively known for the robust association with antisocial, boastful and dishonest tendencies.

The Psychopath

Whilst many people tend to be most fascinated with the ‘Psychopath’, the association with the blood-thirsty serial killer spurred by the media does not necessarily apply to everyone with Psychopathic traits. Psychopathy, just like other personality profiles, lies on a spectrum with serial killers being represented only by the extreme end of the Psychopathy scale. 

Such personas, who make up about 1% of the population and clearly represent a danger to society, are best identified by trained professionals by use of the ‘Psychopathy Checklist’- a diagnostic tool guiding an in-person assessment. However, it needs to be considered that one does not need to be a serial killer to do damage. Psychopathic traits are associated with superficial charm, lack of impulse control, deceitfulness and perhaps most discernibly a lack of empathy. Hence, Psychopaths tend to chase goals without care or understanding of possible consequences, neither for themselves and especially not for other people.

These behavioral tendencies are also found associated with individuals who score highly on the subclinical measure of Psychopathy, which is used as a measure for the Dark Triad to identify Psychopathic traits in the general population. For example, using this measure it was found that Psychopaths express selfishness by engaging in gambling with other peoples’ money but also demonstrate their impulsiveness and lack of foresight by persisting in gambling when they are faced with loss themselves.

The Narcissist

The label ‘Narcissism’ was also initially used solely as a clinical term before being transferred into a sub-clinical measure to detect traits of Narcissism in the general population. People with high Narcissistic traits cultivate inflated yet fragile egos that, once threatened, turn them into reactive aggressors. Although their inflated sense of self may be pointed out as a potential benefit in situations where insecurities are counter-productive, the resulting lack of awareness has proven lethal for certain situations including gambling. Narcissistic traits are the highest predictor of losses when compared to Psychopathic or Machiavellian traits which may be a result of their unrealistic overconfidence.

The Machiavellian

As for the Machiavellian persona, doubt about its relevance for the triad has been expressed, mainly because of the many shared similarities with Psychopathy as well as the fact that its origins stem from anecdotal reports of a single person: Machiavelli. Yet, research studying Machiavellianism as part of the Dark Triad has repeatedly demonstrated cognitive and behavioral differences. Whilst people with high Machiavellian traits also clearly demonstrate a proclivity for engaging in misbehavior, they will do so with strategic vigilance.

This is what sets them apart from the more impulsive Psychopaths, as Machiavellians only become impulsive when they are cognitively depleted. Machiavellians also display only hostile aggression which may be the result of their mistrusting, cynical attitude towards others, whilst Psychopaths are more inclined to physical aggression.

The Dark Triad and Its Relevance for Economic and Social Decision-Making 

Due to the antisocial traits of the Dark Triad, it comes as no surprise that researchers have largely focussed their efforts on identifying destructive behaviors and selfish motivations of its members like bullying or manipulating. However, despite such behavioral inclinations, there are also indications that in specific decision-making contexts where rationality is beneficial for value-maximizing outcomes, the callous traits of some of the members may actually be an advantage. 

For example, one study found that individuals with high Psychopathic traits make more rational decisions than those with lower traits on the Ultimatum Game. As part of this game one player proposes to split a sum of money between himself and another player (e.g. £10), whilst the other player can accept or reject this offer. In the general population ‘unfair’ split proposals (e.g. 9£ and 1£) are often rejected out of spite, even though neither of the players get the money as a result. Psychopaths have instead been found to accept unfair offers more frequently, which is the economically rational decision.

Although a similar study does not yet exist for Machiavellians, their similarly callous profile coupled with their strategic tendencies may lead to similar findings of rational economic decision-making, especially due to their lower impulsivity when compared to Psychopaths. On the other hand, an unfair proposal made to a Narcissist would likely be met with more anger and spite than average, as a result of the Narcissist’s inflated self-image and expectations of special treatment. 

 

While existing studies like the one described above uncover fascinating differences between the dark personality types, their real-world relevance is limited. For one, decision-making studies largely focus on economic decision-making wherein the decision is based on (monetary) rewards or punishments and therefore they do no frequently extent to real-world social contexts. This limitation of using monetary rewards has been addressed in a study involving 207 participants to test retaliation behavior as a result of social punishment: social exclusion. In an online game, participants were made to believe that they were playing with two real people who, after a specified amount of time, exclude the participant from the game. Although Narcissist surprisingly did not show a heightened reaction to the social exclusion Machiavellians showed a lower than average reaction to the exclusion as indicated by more neutral self-reports. Thus, this study provides an indication that (some) dark personality traits could be beneficial in social situations for avoiding conflict.  

A second condition set by The Ultimatum Game is that the decision directly involves (benefits or punishes) the decision maker himself. However, in real-life decision-making contexts decisions are sometimes made on behalf of other people. One of such scenarios are charity donations or general public policy decisions regarding fund allocations. Ironically, the normal population displays a bias that may hinder reasonable charity allocations. This bias is known as ‘psychic numbing’, a phenomenon known as the tendency to be more empathically moved by a single person rather than by many. This phenomenon is counter-productive in scenarios of mass atrocities where smaller relative donations are made to multiple people compared to a single person in need.

Considering that such a phenomenon is likely based on the empathic connection to a single rather than multiple people in need, perhaps a decision maker with a more callous profile would be more inclined to allocate money ‘rationally’, with a greater outcome for society. Such a hypothesis is also supported by the discovery that Psychopaths are more likely to engage in mathematical (utilitarian) moral reasoning, meaning that they could be less likely to be influenced by emotional biases when making moral decisions.

The Dark Triad and Consumer Behavior

When browsing online, consumers are presented with ads tailored to a range of factors including demographic variables, interests, and behavioral patterns. One technique however has gained some infamous attention in the marketing sphere: psychometrics; the tailoring of ad content based on a user’s personality.

Public controversies like the Cambridge Analytica scandal have revealed a dangerously thin line between the potential misuse and opportunity of applied personality science. The problem lies in the transition from self-report personality questionnaires to the use of people’s readily available digital footprint (e.g. Facebook likes, comments) to predict personality, making consent an issue for its practice.

However, the potential of psychometrics should not be dismissed based on the actions of its villains. Psychometrics has for example been implemented openly and enthusiastically in recruitment processes for many years and has the potential to create a better match between consumers and product experiences through targeted marketing and content. By making use of personality science the chance of presenting users with irrelevant, or ill-perceived brand messages is drastically reduced and the opportunity to emphasize with, and tailor to, the needs of customers increased. The key to adopting these practices lies in its transparency and consent, as well as its application for positive change. 

Despite its increasing popularity and increasing adoption, the processes of psychometrics are still in their infancy, allowing room for innovation. Currently, they are most commonly based on the ‘big 5’ or ‘OCEAN model’ of personality which has gained its reputation as the scientifically most reliable personality measure having proved its reproducibility and consistency in hundreds of studies. However, by using this model as the sole measure of personality, another field of personality is ignored: the Dark Triad. Although loaded with negative connotations due to its assessment of aversive human traits, the Dark Triad also represents personality variances resulting in behavioral and cognitive differences. Thus, these differences can also be expected to lead to predictable preferences in how brand messages are perceived as well as how consumption decisions are made.

There are indications in the literature that may pave the road to marketing psychology studies incorporating Dark Triad measures. For example, one study identified differences in personality traits and susceptibility to different persuasion techniques. Individuals with malevolent traits, for example, are most susceptible to scarcity persuasion techniques but least susceptible to reciprocity and authority techniques.

This means that individuals with higher malevolent traits will likely respond with more interest to an ad emphasizing the limited availability of a product, rather than to a celebrity endorsement. Another study also discovered that Dark Triad traits (especially Narcissism and Machiavellianism) are also a predictor for materialism. For a company with a customer base displaying higher Dark Triad traits, this finding could build a case for focussing web and ad content on the display of material objects, rather than social aspects such as stock images of people.

Although a study from the year 2018 made the first attempt to use the Dark Triad to predict consumer behavior, the methodology leaves much room for improvement. Using the shortest measure of the Dark Triad, ‘the Dirty Dozen’ (comprised of 12 items in total) may for example not capture the nuance of each personality type well enough to identify trait-specific behavior.

In the future, using machine learning techniques to map Dark Triad personality types to online shopping behavior could reveal its true potential for predicting browsing behavior and choice patterns. Although the Dark Triad measures traits that most people would prefer not to exhibit, becoming comfortable with the fact that they are normally distributed could lead to fascinating findings.  

Photo by Raj Pooja

References: How The Dark Triad Personality Influences Consumer Behavior

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