Three studies were undertaken to examine the relationship between the Dark Triad (i.e., psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism) and faking ability. Study 1 examined the relationship between psychopathy and the ability to fake good and fake bad on self-report personality inventories in a sample of 84 male federal offenders. Results showed that when faking good, successful fakers scored significantly higher than unsuccessful fakers on carefree nonplanfulness, and significantly lower on stress immunity. When faking bad, successful and unsuccessful fakers did not differ significantly on psychopathy total or subscale scores. Study 2 examined the effect of the Dark Triad on the ability to fake good and fake bad on self-report personality inventories in a sample of 166 undergraduates. Results indicated that when faking good, total psychopathy significantly predicted successful faking for 1 of 3 methods of evaluation, while Machiavellianism significantly predicted success at faking good for 2 of 3 methods of evaluation. Narcissism was unrelated to success at faking good. In addition, the Dark Triad constructs did not predict success at faking bad. Study 3 examined the relationship between the Dark Triad constructs and the ability to fake good interpersonally. In this study, 32 undergraduates comprising four groups (i.e., controls, and individuals high in psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism) provided videotaped self-presentations. A separate group of 134 university students subsequently rated the veracity of these presentations. Results indicated that when faking good, psychopathy and narcissism groups were rated as more believable than the control group. Conversely, the Machiavellianism group was less successful at faking good than the control group. Contributions of this research to the fields of personality assessment and self-presentation are discussed. / Thesis (Ph.D, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2008-10-14 11:24:45.946

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In this study perceived ethical leadership was examined as a moderator of the relationship between the dark triad personality traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy and counterproductive work behavior (CWB) using a sample of 208 employees recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk. These participants completed measures of personality (Short Dark Triad; Jones & Paulhus, 2014), counterproductive workplace behavior (Counterproductive Work Behavior Checklist; Spector et al., 2006), and employee perception of their direct supervisor’s ethical leadership (Brown, Treviño, & Harrison, 2005). Participants were compensated $0.65 for completing the survey. Correlation and moderation analyses (Hayes, 2012) were used to analyze data. Significant correlations suggest that individuals scoring high on Machiavellianism and psychopathy also reported engaging in more CWB. The relationship between Narcissism and counterproductive workplace behavior approached significance in the predicted direction. Machiavellianism and psychopathy were not negatively related to the employee’s perception of their supervisor’s ethical leadership. Narcissism was significantly positively related to an employee’s perception of their supervisor’s ethical leadership. Finally, ethical leadership did not moderate the relationship between Machiavellianism or psychopathy and CWB. Ethical leadership did not moderate the relationship between Narcissism and CWB, but results were approaching significance in the predicted direction. These results suggest that employees who are manipulative and lack empathy were more likely to engage in harmful behaviors in the workplace such as abuse, production deviance, sabotage, theft, and withdrawal. Further, employees who were more narcissistic and have a grandiose view of themselves were more likely to view their leaders as ethical. Overall, the results of this study indicate that perceived ethical leadership does not affect the frequency in which employees high in narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy reported engaging in counterproductive work behaviors.

The primary objective of the current study involved examining the influence of psychopathy on aggression and antisocial behavior. Reports of parental attachment, peer relationships, and exposure to community violence were examined as potential moderators of these relationships. Parental attachment styles and peer delinquency were also assessed with respect to the outcomes. A total of 172 students at a Midwestern college participated. Parental attachment, peer attachment, and exposure to community violence were not significant moderators between psychopathy and the outcome variables. Peer delinquency and exposure to community violence were both predictors of aggression; however, only peer delinquency was a predictor of antisocial behavior. Moreover, there was a significant group difference between those with secure attachment and the other attachment styles with respect to scores for aggression. These findings have implications for prevention and intervention strategies for the community. However, potential problems with data collection and experimental design are discussed. Additional research needs to be performed to determine directional and causal mechanisms of the relationships found in this study.

Hare’s psychopathy construct as defined by the Psychopathy Checklist- Revised has been utilized internationally as a risk assessment instrument for quite some time. Despite this, since its inception it has and continues to raise criticism from the academic community. There is ongoing debate over what the construct entails and how it should be used. Most recent developments in the construct revolve around it being defined as a neurological manifestation. To explore the psychopathy construct’s connection with neuroscience, this thesis focusses on one foundational experiment by the most prominent team of researchers in the field. The exploration borrows from Science and Technology Studies, more specifically Actor-Network Theory and the semiotic of scientific texts. The goal of this analysis is not to criticize nor defend the psychopathy construct, but rather explore the facticity of psychopathy as a neuroscientific fact. Considering the widespread use of the construct across criminal justice systems and mental health practices, understanding the facticity of psychopathy is imperative. Our contention is that psychopathy as defined by neuroscience was not merely a pre-discovered fact of nature, but rather it is a fact that is hybrid; it is both built by researchers and a part of our natural world, social and real. Our findings reveal that the facticity of psychopathy as a neuroscience construct is reliant on it being a Boundary Object: a scientific object that is able to intersect multiple social worlds through its adaptability (Star & Griesemer, 1989). We show how the construct is a boundary object by detailing the many translations it undergoes while it connects with a variety of heterogeneous actors. For each translation, the construct is rendered qualitatively different, yet it proves to be robust enough to maintain the identity of psychopathy and transform it into a neuroscientific fact.

Personality disorder is common amongst individuals accessing mental health services, with research into its aetiology and impact on services increasing in recent years. This thesis has two parts. The first is a systematic review of the neuropsychological functioning among forensic samples with diagnoses of psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Five databases were searched for cross-sectional studies exploring cognitive functioning in psychopathy and ASPD. Twelve studies were reviewed and indicated that individuals with psychopathy and ASPD demonstrate deficits in executive functions, attention, and memory, and that there are some differences in neuropsychological performance between the two disorders. The second part is an empirical study exploring factors that may influence mental health staff attitudes towards individuals with personality disorder. The study found that staff personality traits, emotion regulation style, empathy and job satisfaction were related to attitudes to personality disorder. Empathy and job burnout predicted attitudes, with higher scores on empathy and lower levels of burnout being related to positive attitudes to personality disorder. Implications for the findings of the systematic review and empirical study are discussed. Further research is required in both areas.

Personality neuroscience offers a new theory of the biological basis of personality traits. It involves the use of neuroscientific methodologies to study individual differences in behavior, motivation, emotion, and cognition. Personality psychology has contributed much in identifying the important dimensions of personality, but relatively little to understanding the biological sources of those dimensions. In recent years, personality psychology has become the foundation for the study of personality disorders, and by extension, neuroscience. First, I provide a theoretical foundation for the neuroscience of normal and abnormal personality traits. Second, I conduct two empirical studies on deviant personality traits captured by the Dark Triad (i.e., Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) and relate them to universal human values. Study I shows that darker personalities endorse values that are self-enhancing, and that justify self-serving behavior. Study II investigates the relationship between the aforementioned constructs and empathy based on the idea that empathy is an important moderating factor of dark traits. In the discussion, suggestions for future studies in neuroscience are presented, as well as some limitations relating to the constructs.

With increasing education expenses and characterization of our culture as “sexualized”, scholars have begun to explore student engagement in erotic services, but most research has been done outside the United States. This study tested personality correlates, prevalence and type of erotic service involvement in men and women college students in the United States. Specifically, the present study examined gender differences and whether substance use and psychopathic traits exhibit unique and/or interactive associations with both provision and consumption of erotic services among students. A total of 820 undergraduate students (54.3% women) took part in a study on personality and sexual behavior, and completed the Texas Christian University Drug Screen-V (TCUDS-V; Knight, Simpson, & Hiller, 2002), Self-Report Psychopathy Scale-III (SRP-III; Paulhus, Hemphill, & Hare, 2012), and Erotic Activity Questionnaire (EAQ). Men and women endorsed engagement in provision and consumption of erotic services and/or sex exchange, with higher prevalence rates for consumption relative to provision. Substance use and psychopathic traits showed independent relationships to provision and consumption, and whereas impulsive-antisocial psychopathic traits related to provision, both interpersonal-affective and impulsive-antisocial traits related to consumption, but only among those low in the other trait dimension. Lastly, gender showed a main effect for consumption of erotic services (men > women), but relations between psychopathic traits and erotic service involvement were not dependent on gender. Results point to college student involvement in the sex industry to a certain degree, and highlight personality vulnerabilities that may aid in the identification of students who are more apt to become involved in potentially risky behavior within erotic contexts.

Theory and research suggest that at least two subgroups of individuals with psychopathicpersonality that can be differentiated based on their levels of anxiety. What we know so far ofthe distinction between these subgroups is based predominantly on relatively small samples ofmales in institutionalized populations. The present study is the first to use a large andrandomly selected sample of the general population to try to identify subgroups of individualswith psychopathic personality separately for males and females (n=2500; 52.6% females;M=22.15; SD=1.38). Latent profile analysis suggested a two-group solution; where bothsubgroups were high on psychopathic traits, but low respectively high on a measure ofanxiety. The identified subgroups differed across theoretically and empirically relevantconstructs in that the high anxious group reported significantly more maltreatment history,aggression, symptoms of ADHD and post-traumatic stress, and treatment involvement.Generally, the differences between the high anxious and the low anxious subgroups were thesame for males and females, but an important difference was that the female high anxioussubgroup reported being significantly more involved in treatment. In conclusion, the gainedsubgroups are in several ways, but not in all, in line with theories of primary and secondary psychopathy.

Callous-Unemotional (CU) traits are characterized by limited empathy, lack of guilt or remorse, and callous use of others. They are a risk factor for adult psychopathy, especially when comorbid with conduct problems. Thus, efforts to identify risk factors and consequences of CU traits have been prominent. One construct that may act as both a risk factor for and consequence of CU traits among youth is anxiety. While the most consistent finding is in this literature is a negative relation between CU traits and anxiety, findings have been mixed. The present study examined bidirectional relations between three subtypes of anxiety (i.e. physiological anxiety, fear and concentration problems, and worry and oversensitivity), CU traits, and conduct problems over six months among a sample of primarily African American middle school students. Results showed that CU traits at Time 1 were not associated with changes in physiological anxiety, fear and concentration problems, or worry and oversensitivity at Time 2. Similarly, physiological anxiety, fear and concentration problems, and worry and oversensitivity at Time 1 were not associated with increased CU traits at Time 2. Further, no longitudinal relations were found between CU traits and conduct problems. The six-month timeframe may have been too short to see changes in anxiety and CU traits given their stability. The models tested also did not take into account the impact of factors such as distress and trauma which may influence bidirectional relations between CU traits and anxiety.