Dark Triad

We often imagine people with dark personalities as obvious villains. But science reveals a far stranger truth, showing how these traits influence everything from head movements to vulnerability to email scams.

Psychopathic traits like low empathy and impulsivity are linked to specific mating strategies, new research confirms. A comprehensive meta-analysis has established a robust correlation between trait psychopathy and a greater willingness to engage in casual sex without emotional commitment.

New neuroimaging research indicates that individuals with higher levels of antisocial personality traits show weaker brain responses to looming angry faces. The findings may help explain why some people fail to recognize or respond appropriately to social threats.

People who struggle to distinguish pseudo-profound nonsense from genuine insight often believe they are better than others at doing so, according to new research in Thinking & Reasoning. Personality traits like narcissism also play a role.

Conventional values may reflect deeper personality patterns. A new study links strong support for tradition and security with dark-side traits such as obsessiveness, avoidance, and narcissism, suggesting these values may serve psychological needs for structure, certainty, and predictability.

A new study published in The Journal of Psychology suggests that people high in narcissism, psychopathy, or Machiavellianism may be more likely to fall for phishing emails—not because of poor logic, but due to lower social awareness.

A recent study sheds light on how narcissists interact with the social world—not through their actions, but through what they choose to observe. The findings suggest individuals high in antagonistic narcissism prefer antisocial news and tend to avoid prosocial content.

New research finds that men high in psychopathy and sexual desire, and women who are less picky with matches, report more sexual encounters via Tinder. The findings suggest dating apps favor fast, opportunistic mating strategies shaped by personality.

New research highlights shared and distinct brain connectivity patterns linked to narcissistic and antisocial traits. Using resting-state fMRI and graph theory, the study found altered activity across key brain networks involved in self-reflection, emotion processing, and cognitive control.

Researchers have uncovered a connection between societal adversity and dark personality traits like callousness and manipulation. In places marked by corruption and violence, people were more likely to endorse self-serving behaviors—even when it meant harming others.

Researchers used high-resolution brain imaging to investigate psychopathy’s neural basis, finding widespread structural differences in men with high psychopathy scores, particularly in frontal-subcortical circuits linked to impulse regulation, decision-making, and behavioral control.

People who strongly admire celebrities tend to score higher in materialism and vulnerable narcissism, according to a new study. The findings also suggest that feeling similar to a celebrity may play a key role in developing intense admiration.

A nationwide Swedish study finds most women who commit lethal violence act in emotionally charged situations, with low psychopathy scores and little planning. Severe mental disorders were linked to a more complex blend of reactive and instrumental features.

A sweeping new study reveals that narcissistic traits—especially antagonistic rivalry—are linked to more frequent experiences of social exclusion, shaped by how narcissists perceive ambiguous interactions, how they behave toward others, and how exclusion can reinforce narcissism over time.