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Dark personality, marital quality, and marital instability of Chinese couples: An actor-partner interdependence mediation model
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Dark personality, marital quality, and marital instability of Chinese couples: An actor-partner interdependence mediation model ⁎
Yu Yuea,c, , Wu Dib, Wang Jiang-Mengb, Wang Yu-Chenc a
School of Sociology, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, China School of psychology, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China c Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China b
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Machiavellianism Psychopathy Marital quality Martial instability Actor-partner interdependence mediation model
Previous studies investigated the connection between personality and relationship outcomes. Expanding previous work, the current study examined the concurrent relationship between dark personality and marital instability and further explored its mechanism in an actor-partner interdependence mediation model. The present study recruited 260 married Chinese couples and collected self- and partner-ratings of Machiavellianism and psychopathy using the Mach-IV and the Levenson self-report psychopathy scale. In addition, we measured marital quality and marital instability using the quality marriage index and the marital instability scale (short form), respectively. Results showed that both Machiavellianism and psychopathy had indirect actor-partner effects on marital instability. Furthermore, self- and partner-rating Machiavellianism and psychopathy are more likely to affect marital instability by full mediation of marital quality. In conclusion, marital quality plays a complete mediating role between dark personality and marital instability. The current study enriches the theoretical framework of the relationship between personality and relationship consequence and provides great practical significance for maintaining a close relationship.
1. Introduction For many people, a marriage begins with satisfaction and bliss, but gradually it slips downhill and even becomes the cause of vexation and distress. Most people get married at some point in their lifetime (Oliver, Bjorksten, & John, 1984), yet nearly two thirds of first marriages are expected to end in separation or divorce (Jonason, Koenig, & Tost, 2010). Therefore, researchers have been interested in factors that could promote a sustained and healthy marital relationship. To date, many factors have been shown to be associated with couple's marital stability, including race and sex (e.g., Udry, 1966), religion (e.g., Call & Heaton, 1997), education (e.g., Karney & Bradbury, 1995), personality (e.g., Back & Vazire, 2015) and age at marriage (e.g., Booth, Johnson, & Edwards, 1983). Among them, personality traits play a vital role in maintaining marital stability (He, Wang, Xing, & Yu, 2018; Karney & Bradbury, 1995). Back and Vazire (2015) reviewed the social outcomes of personality, emphasizing that personality plays an important role in intimate relationships. A great number of studies examining the effects of personality on intimate relationships have used the Big Five personality traits (Gattis, Berns, & Simpson, 2004; Karney &
⁎
Bradbury, 1995; Mund, Finn, Hagemeyer, & Neyer, 2016; Watson et al., 2004). Among the five personality traits, neuroticism has been consistently found to be the most influential and stable trait negatively correlated to marital stability (Dyrenforth, Kashy, Donnellan, & Lucas, 2010; Karney & Bradbury, 1995; Solomon & Jackson, 2014). Specifically, high levels of neuroticism were found to be negatively correlated with indicators of relationship satisfaction (Dyrenforth et al., 2010; Orth, 2013) such as relationship dissatisfaction, conflict, abuse, and even relational termination (Donnellan, Larsen-Rife, & Conger, 2005; Karney & Bradbury, 1995). Neurotic individuals have also been found to demonstrate more negative explanations for negative interpretation bias in relationships (Finn, Mitte, & Neyer, 2013). On the other hand, previous studies have found mixed results regarding the relationship between the other four traits and close satisfaction (Dyrenforth et al., 2010; Neyer, Mund, Zimmermann, & Wrzus, 2014; Watson & Hubbard, 1996). Recent studies have pointed out that the Big Five personality traits overemphasize the positive aspects of human nature and therefore cannot reflect all aspects of personality of the individual as a social person (He et al., 2018; Muris, Merckelbach, Otgaar, & Meijer, 2017). It has been suggested that studies need to examine intimate relationship
Corresponding author at: School of Sociology, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, China. E-mail address: [email protected] (Y. Yu).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109689 Received 29 August 2019; Received in revised form 27 October 2019; Accepted 3 November 2019 0191-8869/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Yu Yue, et al., Personality and Individual Differences, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109689
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in Chinese culture, there is a widely-acknowledged theory called “thick black”, referring to the act to use power, tactics, and strategy to accomplish one's goals or gratify one's needs, standing as a synonym of “Machiavellianism” in the western societies (Tang & Guo, 2010). The only difference between “thick black” and Machiavellianism is that the former phrase stands for a behavior strategy rather than a personality trait (Tang & Guo, 2010). Meanwhile, studies found that Machiavellianism and psychopathy significantly negatively predicted relationship satisfaction both in Chinese and western samples (Grijalva et al., 2015; He et al., 2018; Muris et al., 2017), yet narcissism is inconsistent with the prediction of relationship satisfaction (both positive and negative; Kardum, Hudek-Knezevic, Gračanin, & Mehic, 2017). In addition, there is also a strong correlation between Machiavellianism and psychopathy (Furnham et al., 2013; Muris et al., 2017). Therefore, the current study only examined Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Above all, in line with the VSA model, we hypothesized that, in a dyadic level, marital quality should mediate the direct effect of dark personality (Machiavellianism and psychopathy) on marital instability. Moreover, since prior research focused on the effects of partner perspectives personality on the quality of their relationships (Furler, Gomez, & Grob, 2014; He et al., 2018; Weiss, Lavner, & Miller, 2018), we add partner-report and expect it to be more likely to affect marital instability by mediation of marital quality.
through the lens of personality factors characterized by complex realities (Furnham, Richards, & Paulhus, 2013; Muris et al., 2017). Dark personality, which was proposed in recent years, focuses on the complex realities of people and have since been widely used to study personality and relationships (Furnham & Trickey, 2011; Muris et al., 2017; Paulhus & Williams, 2002; Smith et al., 2014). One advantage of the dark personality over the big five personality is that it can reflect the whole picture of individual personality and is of great practical significance (Furnham et al., 2013; Muris et al., 2017). Paulhus and Williams (2002) proposed three traits as the core of dark personality: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. These three personality traits (the Dark Triad) are related to negative behavioral and mental performance patterns (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). For example, individuals high on Machiavellian trait tend to be manipulative, ruthless and pragmatic; individuals high on psychopathy is often characterized as thrill-seeking, impulsiveness, and lack of empathy and a sense of responsibility; individuals high on narcissism is associated with vanity, dominance, egocentricity, condescension and presumptuousness (James, Kavanagh, Jonason, Chonody, & Scrutton, 2014). Importantly, recent studies have found connection between dark personality and intimate relationships. For example, studies have found that Machiavellianism and psychopathy were negatively associated with the quality of intimate relationships (Ali & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2010; Jonason, Li, & Buss, 2010). Studies have also found that the dark triad, especially Machiavellianism and psychopathy, can predict conflicts in communication, which often entails the termination of relationship (Horan, Guinn, & Banghart, 2015). On the other hand, the association between narcissism and intimate relationships remains unclear (Furnham et al., 2013; Muris et al., 2017). Back and Vazire (2015) suggested exploring mechanism that can explain the association between personality and social outcomes. However, the mechanism underlying the relationship between dark traits and intimate relationship outcomes so far have been rarely explored. The vulnerability stress adaptation model (VSA) proposed by Karney and Bradbury (1995) considers the influence of personality on relationship satisfaction and stability in the form of enduring vulnerabilities. In particular, the authors proposed an indirect influence of personality traits on partner relationships through stressful events and the capacity to adapt to such events. For example, spouses’ self-rating of their childhood in their original family is related to the number of specific complaints about their own marriage as well as general attitudes towards the marriage system (Franklin, Janoff-Bulman, & Roberts, 1990). Similarly, couples’ traits have been associated directly with the quality of their interactions; conflict and negative emotion, in particular, have been linked to the attributions couples make for partner behaviors (Karney, Bradbury, Fincham, & Sullivan, 1994). In addition, evaluation of marital quality is expected to either improve or impair couples’ abilities to engage in effective marital problem solving, to provide emotional support for each other, and to adapt to stressful events (Karney & Bradbury, 1995). Therefore, we used a cross-sectional perspective to examine the relationship between dark personality and marital instability and further explore its mechanism in an actorpartner interdependence mediation model (APIMeM, see Fig. 1; Ledermann, Macho, & Kenny, 2011). Furthermore, the traditional assessment of dark personality has been criticized for not always generalizing across cultures very well (Muris et al., 2017). However, according to the findings of several studies, reliable data that illustrate dark personality have predictive power in non-U.S. sample (Geng et al., 2017; He et al., 2018). It is a well-known historical fact that since the introduction of the Reform and Opening-Up policy in the late 1970s, exchanges between China and occidental countries have substantially arisen. Along with this trend and acceleration of economic globalization, internet and social media have come to play an increasingly vital role in people's life, resulting in a large number of behaviors and lifestyles becoming more and more consistent all over the world (Xu, Xie, Liu, Xia, & Liu, 2007). Moreover,
2. Method 2.1. Participants and measures Participants were 292 heterosexual married couples from Beijing recruited through convenience sampling by social media (Wechat, Weibo, BBS) and advertisement in local communities. After screening based on demographic variables including age (under the age of 45), educational background (high school or above), the data of 260 couples were eventually adopted. The ages of male participants range from 23 to 40 years old while ages of female participants range from 20 to 39. The length of their marriage ranges from 0.5 to 7 years (M = 2.68, SD = 1.57). The length of their dating before marriage ranges from 1 to 7 years (M = 2.42, SD = 1.44). 2.2. Measures 2.2.1. Mach IV We measured Machiavellianism using the 20-item Mach-IV (Christie & Geis, 1970). Both men and women were asked to which degree they agreed (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree) with statements such as “If you always have unreserved trust in others, you are asking for trouble”. For the partner-report version, the instructions were modified as necessary to ensure that participants would report the opinion their partner most likely held (the same for the psychopathy measurement in 2.2.2). The items were averaged to create an index of Machiavellianism. The Cronbach's alphas of this scale in the current study were 0.75 for self-rating and 0.79 for partner-rating. 2.2.2. The Levenson self-report psychopathy scale We used the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP, Levenson, Kiehl, & Fitzpatrick, 1995) to measure the psychopathy of partners. The original inventory includes two subscales and 26 items in total, with the primary psychopathy subscale comprising 16 items and the secondary psychopathy subscale comprising 10 items. Because the participants in the prior study were all sub-clinical samples, we only used the primary psychopathy subscale (Newman, MacCoon, Vaughn, & Sadeh, 2005). Participants were asked to choose from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) to indicate the degree of their agreement with the statements such as “My main purpose in life is getting as many goodies as I can”. In the current research, the Cronbach's alphas of the 2
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Fig. 1. The theoretical model for the current study.
2.4. Procedure
Levenson self-report psychopathy scale were 0.77 for self-rating and 0.81 for partner-rating.
Participants were invited to participate in the study on a voluntary basis. They were invited to the laboratory in pairs, or alternatively, directed to a private webpage and asked to complete a series of questionnaires independently using computers in two separate rooms. The questionnaires were presented in a counterbalanced order. Finally, couples were given digital feedback reports and 80 RMB for their participation.
2.2.3. Marital quality We measured marriage quality using the 6-item Quality Marriage Index (QMI; Norton, 1983). The scale measures participants’ satisfaction with their intimate relationships. Participants rated items about how much they liked their marriage (e.g., “My marriage with my partner makes me happy”) on a 7-point Likert scale (1=very strong disagreement, 7=very strong agreement). The sixth is the topic of an overall assessment from "1=very unhappy" to "10=very happy". The higher the total score, the higher the degree of marital satisfaction and the higher marital quality would be. The Cronbach's alphas in our study was 0.94.
3. Results 3.1. Correlations Correlations and descriptive statistics are shown in Table 1. The results showed that all the measures were significantly correlated with each other. The data were fit for further exploration of path analysis.
2.2.4. Marital instability scale (short form) We used the short form 5-item Marital Instability Scale (Booth et al., 1983) to measure the marital stability. The couples were asked to report the frequency of the given incidents (e.g., “Have you ever thought about divorce of separation in the past 6 months”) using never (1) to very often (4). The higher the score, the more unstable the marriage would be. The Cronbach's alpha of the Marital Instability Scale was 0.89.
3.2. The structural equation model The structural equation model was tested in Mplus 7 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2012). After controlling for a series of confounding variables, including marital length, income, age, and level of education, the two hypothesized models showed good fit to the data given the complexity of the overall model. For Model 1 (Machiavellianism), χ² = 30.066, df = 16, p < 0.05, RMSEA=0.058 (95% CI = 0.024–0.090), CFI = 0.979, TLI = 0.950, SRMR = 0.049 (shown in Fig. 2). For Model 2 (psychopathy), χ² = 27.905, df = 16, p < 0.05, RMSEA=0.053 (95% CI = 0.015–0.086), CFI = 0.982, TLI = 0.956, SRMR = 0.060 (shown in Fig. 3).
2.3. Actor-partner interdependence mediation model (APIMeM) The current study used the Actor-Partner Interdependence Mediation Models (APIMeMs; Ledermann et al., 2011) to separately examine the actor, partner, and mediation effects. Actor effects describe the relationship between one's own personality traits and marital stability. In addition, partner effects describe the relationship between one's own personality traits and one's partner's marital stability. We have tested the mediation effect of marital quality between dark personality and marital instability in the APIMeM, which is becoming more common in the research of relationships (Smith et al., 2014). In order to avoid social desirability bias, we adopted both self- and partner-ratings of dark traits instead of only individual partner's personality measurements.
3.2.1. Direct effect analysis. Results show that (Figs. 2 and 3) there was neither direct effect between Machiavellianism and marital instability, nor direct effect between psychopathy and marital instability. We found that both dark personalities affected marital instability through marital quality. Specifically, women partner-rating Machiavellianism had significant actor effects (b = −0.163, t = −3.483) and partner effects on martial quality (b = −0.209, t = −4.331), women partner-rating psychopathy had significant actor effects (b = −0.255, t = −6.183) and partner effects on martial quality (b = −0.259, t = −6.331). As expected, marital quality had significant actor and partner effects on marital instability (see Figs. 2 and 3). 3
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Table 1 Correlations for all variables.
1 Machiavellianism_men_self 2 Machiavellianism_women_self 3 Machiavellianism_men_partner 4 Machiavellianism_women_patner 5 psychopathy_men_self 6 psychopathy_women_self 7 psychopathy_men_partner 8 psychopathy_women_patner 9 Marital quality_men 10 Marital quality_women 11 Marital instability_men 12 Marital instability_women
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
– 0.331⁎⁎ 0.291⁎⁎ 0.507⁎⁎ 0.599⁎⁎ 0.213⁎⁎ 0.278⁎⁎ 0.321⁎⁎ −0.373⁎⁎ −0.252⁎⁎ 0.264⁎⁎ 0.187⁎⁎
– 0.408⁎⁎ 0.342⁎⁎ 0.320⁎⁎ 0.557⁎⁎ 0.317⁎⁎ 0.317⁎⁎ −0.298⁎⁎ −0.366⁎⁎ 0.173⁎⁎ 0.271⁎⁎
– 0.247⁎⁎ 0.230⁎⁎ 0.315⁎⁎ 0.643⁎⁎ 0.175⁎⁎ −0.262⁎⁎ −0.370⁎⁎ 0.240⁎⁎ 0.332⁎⁎
– 0.407⁎⁎ 0.288⁎⁎ 0.232⁎⁎ 0.612⁎⁎ −0.376⁎⁎ −0.310⁎⁎ 0.321⁎⁎ 0.317⁎⁎
– 0.353⁎⁎ 0.425⁎⁎ 0.617⁎⁎ −0.315⁎⁎ −0.264⁎⁎ 0.248⁎⁎ 0.185⁎⁎
– 0.537⁎⁎ 0.368⁎⁎ −0.279⁎⁎ −0.302⁎⁎ 0.234⁎⁎ 0.244⁎⁎
– 0.343⁎⁎ −0.274⁎⁎ −0.359⁎⁎ 0.238⁎⁎ 0.255⁎⁎
– −0.441⁎⁎ −0.406⁎⁎ 0.352⁎⁎ 0.356⁎⁎
– 0.603⁎⁎ −0.606⁎⁎ −0.512⁎⁎
– −0.518⁎⁎ −0.631⁎⁎
– 0.685⁎⁎
instability, and marital quality was found to be a completely mediated variable between dark personality and marital stability. The VSA model emphasizes the existence of multiple paths in an intimate relationship that can explain marital quality and stability (Karney & Bradbury, 1995). Marital quality as an intermediate variable is closely related to the individual's vulnerability, stress events, and the ability to adjust, which in turn has an effect on marital stability (Karney & Bradbury, 1995; Mund et al., 2016). Prediction 2 received mixed support. Women's partner-rating Machiavellianism had a significant actor-partner effect on the marital quality, and men's partner-reported Machiavellianism had a significant partner-effect on the women's marital quality. Paulhus and Williams (2002) argued that individuals high in Machiavellianism emphasize realism, focus on results, and tend to be manipulative. Recent research also revealed that Machiavellian help people “get ahead of’’ but not necessarily ‘‘get along with’’ others in their workplace and family. Nevertheless, individuals high in Machiavellianism benefit from a more strategic and regulated mating style (such as love-struck and selfless style) that maintains the relationship (Furnham et al., 2013; Jonason et al., 2010). In addition, studies have found that collecting partner-reported data can lead to more accurate estimation, leading to larger partner effects (Furler et al., 2014; Orth, 2013). Partner-rating Machiavellianism, as well as psychopathy, has been shown by previous studies to be significantly correlated with marital quality, with high level of Machiavellianism generally associated with worse relationship quality (Cook & Kenny, 2005; Mund et al., 2016; Wilson, Harris, & Vazire, 2015). One potential explanation for the discrepancy between
3.2.2. Indirect effect analysis There are several indirect effects in the model, the specific path, indirect effect values and confidence intervals are shown in Table 2. The results showed that the Machiavellianism of both men and women with self-report had a significant indirect effect on marital instability (see lines 1–4 of Table 2). Similarly, the partner-rating Machiavellianism had a significant indirect effect on marital instability (see lines 5–8 of Table 2), and the marital quality played a complete mediating role (as depicted in Fig. 2; Predictions 1 and 2). Also, the details of the indirect effects between psychopathy and marital instability via marital quality results are shown in Table 2, and the specific paths of relationships are shown in Fig. 3. There was no significant effect on both men and women with self-report. Both men's and women's partner-ratings had a significant indirect effect on marital instability (see lines 9–14 of Table 2; Prediction 2). Both men's and women's marital quality mediated the actor and partner effect of partner-rating psychopathy on marital instability (see lines 11–14 of Table 2; Predictions 1 and 2).
4. Discussion The current study examined the concurrent relationship between self- and partner-rating Machiavellianism and psychopathy on intimate relationships. We further used the Actor-partner Interdependence Mediation Model to explore the underlying mechanism of this relationship. Consistent with our Prediction 1, the results showed that both Machiavellianism and psychopathy had indirect effects on marital
Fig. 2. Actor-partner interdependence model results for the direct and mediated (via marital quality) association between Machiavellianism and marital instability for 260 couples. Numbers are unstandardized regression coefficients. 4
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Fig. 3. Actor-partner interdependence model results for the direct and mediated (via marital quality) association between psychopathy and marital instability for 260 couples. Numbers are unstandardized regression coefficients. Table 2 APIMeM results for the indirect effect.
Machiavellianism_men_self→Quality_men→Instability_men Machiavellianism_women_self→Quality_women→Instability_women Machiavellianism_men_self→Quality_men→Instability_women Machiavellianism_women_self→Quality_women→Instability_men Machiavellianism_men_partner→Quality_women→Instability_women Machiavellianism_men_partner→Quality_women→Instability_men Machiavellianism_women_partner→Quality_men→Instability_men Machiavellianism_women_partner→Quality_women→Instability_women Psychopathy_men_partner →Quality_women→instability_women Psychopathy_men_partner→Quality_women→instability_men Psychopathy_women_partner→Quality_women→instability_women Psychopathy_women_partner→Quality_men→instability_women Psychopathy_women_partner→Quality_women→instability_men Psychopathy_women_partner→Quality_men→instability_men
Actor-partner effect
b
[95% CI]
p
= = = = = = = = = = = = = =
0.026 0.035 0.013 0.015 0.036 0.015 0.030 0.027 0.034 0.015 0.042 0.018 0.018 0.037
[0.01,0.05] [0.01,.0.06] [0.00,0.03] [0.00,0.03] [0.01,0.06] [0.00,0.03] [0.00,0.05] [0.00,0.05] [0.01,0.06] [0.00,0.03] [0.01,0.08] [0.00,0.04] [0.00,0.04] [0.02,0.06]
0.017* 0.004* 0.050* 0.027* 0.008** 0.043* 0.024* 0.031* 0.002** 0.022** 0.009** 0.047* 0.034* 0.001**
Actor→Actor Actor→Actor Actor→Partner Actor→Partner Partner→Actor Partner→Partner Partner→Actor Actor→Actor Partner→Actor Partner→Partner Actor→Actor Actor→Partner Partner→Partner Partner→Actor
Note: N = 260 couples. A=Actor effect, P=Partner effect. ⁎ p < 0.05. ⁎⁎ p < 0.01.
current findings and previous research is that some studies have found that men are less sensitive to marital quality than women (Furnham et al., 2013), which possibly accounts for the result that men did not report a significant difference in marital quality due to the difference in their partner-reported Machiavellianism. Both partners have neither actor effect nor partner effect on marital quality in terms of self-reported psychopathy. One reason for this may be that psychopathy is more genetically based and mainly characterized by deficient emotional reactivity in a highly interactive close relationship and is more extreme in terms of viciousness and thus has more social and personal costs than Machiavellianism (Kardum et al., 2017; Repacholi, Slaughter, Pritchard, & Gibbs, 2003). Recent research found that women who view their husbands as more antagonistic and disinhibited have marriages that are more likely to end in an interdependent interpersonal context (Weiss et al., 2018). The second may be due to the controlling for shared variance among the dark personality revealed that psychopathy is the most malevolent and dark trait, accounting for unique variance in various psychosocial outcomes such as intimate relationship especially in partner's perspective (Jonason & Schmitt, 2012; Muris et al., 2017). Weiss et al. (2018) revealed that husband's partner-rated psychopathic traits were a significant predictor of divorce and partner-ratings hold above and beyond the effect of one's own personality traits. Similarly, previous research consistently suggested
that partner-reports, instead of self-reports, provide substantial incremental validity in the study of outcomes associated with psychopathy studied in a marital context (Fowler & Lilienfeld, 2007). Thirdly, LSRP has a certain degree of desirability deficit caused by social desirability, resulting in low levels of self-rating psychopathy (Brinkley, Schmitt, Smith & Newman, 2001). Muris et al. (2017) also argued that friends, family members, and romantic partners were invited to fill in dark triad questionnaires about the participants, thereby providing important collateral information. Therefore, the other-informant rating is strongly recommended for future research on the dark personality because it would be one strategy to circumvent fake-good reporting biases. Compared with previous studies, our study has several advantages. First, the current research improved the theoretical framework of personality and relationship. We mainly focused on the relationship between dark personality and marital instability, while previous studies mostly focused on general and social expectation personality traits. Secondly, the APIMeM model was used to explain the mechanism of the relationship between dark personality traits and intimate relationship, which laid a foundation for future research. Third, we added partnerrating here not only to eliminate common method bias caused by selfrating, but also to increase the explanation rate of relationship outcomes. However, there are some limitations in the current study. The LSRP, as one of the most widely used psychopathic measurement tools, 5
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especially in terms of women's self-rating, is obviously influenced by cravings for social approval. It would be much more advisable if further research uses more objective methods like diary study or behavior observation. In addition, it should be noted that this study examined only the correlation between dark personality and intimate relationships from a cross-sectional perspective. Further research is expected to use a longitudinal perspective to examine the effects between dark personality and relationships. In addition to theoretical advances, there are some significant practical implications for improving close relationship. On one hand, previous research found Machiavellianism had some adaptive value and was positively related to social outcomes (Furnham et al., 2013). Therefore, couples in an intimate relationship should keep an open mind about Machiavellianism in their partners and try to get along with them rather than provoke their manipulative motivation. On the other hand, the so-called “James Bond psychology” and belief that “cunning men attract women” are prevalent in western and Chinese culture (Furnham & Trickey, 2011; Jonason, Li, & Teicher, 2010). However, the negative effects of women's perspectives on their husbands’ satisfaction take time to unfold; respectively, these men show a tendency to find marriage increasingly dissatisfying as time elapses. As a result, people, especially women, should beware of their partners’ fatal attraction and make rational decisions before starting a long-term intimate relationship.
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Dark personality, marital quality, and marital instability of Chinese couples: An actor-partner interdependence mediation model ⁎
Yu Yuea,c, , Wu Dib, Wang Jiang-Mengb, Wang Yu-Chenc a
School of Sociology, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, China School of psychology, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China c Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China b
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Machiavellianism Psychopathy Marital quality Martial instability Actor-partner interdependence mediation model
Previous studies investigated the connection between personality and relationship outcomes. Expanding previous work, the current study examined the concurrent relationship between dark personality and marital instability and further explored its mechanism in an actor-partner interdependence mediation model. The present study recruited 260 married Chinese couples and collected self- and partner-ratings of Machiavellianism and psychopathy using the Mach-IV and the Levenson self-report psychopathy scale. In addition, we measured marital quality and marital instability using the quality marriage index and the marital instability scale (short form), respectively. Results showed that both Machiavellianism and psychopathy had indirect actor-partner effects on marital instability. Furthermore, self- and partner-rating Machiavellianism and psychopathy are more likely to affect marital instability by full mediation of marital quality. In conclusion, marital quality plays a complete mediating role between dark personality and marital instability. The current study enriches the theoretical framework of the relationship between personality and relationship consequence and provides great practical significance for maintaining a close relationship.
1. Introduction For many people, a marriage begins with satisfaction and bliss, but gradually it slips downhill and even becomes the cause of vexation and distress. Most people get married at some point in their lifetime (Oliver, Bjorksten, & John, 1984), yet nearly two thirds of first marriages are expected to end in separation or divorce (Jonason, Koenig, & Tost, 2010). Therefore, researchers have been interested in factors that could promote a sustained and healthy marital relationship. To date, many factors have been shown to be associated with couple's marital stability, including race and sex (e.g., Udry, 1966), religion (e.g., Call & Heaton, 1997), education (e.g., Karney & Bradbury, 1995), personality (e.g., Back & Vazire, 2015) and age at marriage (e.g., Booth, Johnson, & Edwards, 1983). Among them, personality traits play a vital role in maintaining marital stability (He, Wang, Xing, & Yu, 2018; Karney & Bradbury, 1995). Back and Vazire (2015) reviewed the social outcomes of personality, emphasizing that personality plays an important role in intimate relationships. A great number of studies examining the effects of personality on intimate relationships have used the Big Five personality traits (Gattis, Berns, & Simpson, 2004; Karney &
⁎
Bradbury, 1995; Mund, Finn, Hagemeyer, & Neyer, 2016; Watson et al., 2004). Among the five personality traits, neuroticism has been consistently found to be the most influential and stable trait negatively correlated to marital stability (Dyrenforth, Kashy, Donnellan, & Lucas, 2010; Karney & Bradbury, 1995; Solomon & Jackson, 2014). Specifically, high levels of neuroticism were found to be negatively correlated with indicators of relationship satisfaction (Dyrenforth et al., 2010; Orth, 2013) such as relationship dissatisfaction, conflict, abuse, and even relational termination (Donnellan, Larsen-Rife, & Conger, 2005; Karney & Bradbury, 1995). Neurotic individuals have also been found to demonstrate more negative explanations for negative interpretation bias in relationships (Finn, Mitte, & Neyer, 2013). On the other hand, previous studies have found mixed results regarding the relationship between the other four traits and close satisfaction (Dyrenforth et al., 2010; Neyer, Mund, Zimmermann, & Wrzus, 2014; Watson & Hubbard, 1996). Recent studies have pointed out that the Big Five personality traits overemphasize the positive aspects of human nature and therefore cannot reflect all aspects of personality of the individual as a social person (He et al., 2018; Muris, Merckelbach, Otgaar, & Meijer, 2017). It has been suggested that studies need to examine intimate relationship
Corresponding author at: School of Sociology, China University of Political Science and Law, Beijing, China. E-mail address: [email protected] (Y. Yu).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109689 Received 29 August 2019; Received in revised form 27 October 2019; Accepted 3 November 2019 0191-8869/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Yu Yue, et al., Personality and Individual Differences, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109689
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in Chinese culture, there is a widely-acknowledged theory called “thick black”, referring to the act to use power, tactics, and strategy to accomplish one's goals or gratify one's needs, standing as a synonym of “Machiavellianism” in the western societies (Tang & Guo, 2010). The only difference between “thick black” and Machiavellianism is that the former phrase stands for a behavior strategy rather than a personality trait (Tang & Guo, 2010). Meanwhile, studies found that Machiavellianism and psychopathy significantly negatively predicted relationship satisfaction both in Chinese and western samples (Grijalva et al., 2015; He et al., 2018; Muris et al., 2017), yet narcissism is inconsistent with the prediction of relationship satisfaction (both positive and negative; Kardum, Hudek-Knezevic, Gračanin, & Mehic, 2017). In addition, there is also a strong correlation between Machiavellianism and psychopathy (Furnham et al., 2013; Muris et al., 2017). Therefore, the current study only examined Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Above all, in line with the VSA model, we hypothesized that, in a dyadic level, marital quality should mediate the direct effect of dark personality (Machiavellianism and psychopathy) on marital instability. Moreover, since prior research focused on the effects of partner perspectives personality on the quality of their relationships (Furler, Gomez, & Grob, 2014; He et al., 2018; Weiss, Lavner, & Miller, 2018), we add partner-report and expect it to be more likely to affect marital instability by mediation of marital quality.
through the lens of personality factors characterized by complex realities (Furnham, Richards, & Paulhus, 2013; Muris et al., 2017). Dark personality, which was proposed in recent years, focuses on the complex realities of people and have since been widely used to study personality and relationships (Furnham & Trickey, 2011; Muris et al., 2017; Paulhus & Williams, 2002; Smith et al., 2014). One advantage of the dark personality over the big five personality is that it can reflect the whole picture of individual personality and is of great practical significance (Furnham et al., 2013; Muris et al., 2017). Paulhus and Williams (2002) proposed three traits as the core of dark personality: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. These three personality traits (the Dark Triad) are related to negative behavioral and mental performance patterns (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). For example, individuals high on Machiavellian trait tend to be manipulative, ruthless and pragmatic; individuals high on psychopathy is often characterized as thrill-seeking, impulsiveness, and lack of empathy and a sense of responsibility; individuals high on narcissism is associated with vanity, dominance, egocentricity, condescension and presumptuousness (James, Kavanagh, Jonason, Chonody, & Scrutton, 2014). Importantly, recent studies have found connection between dark personality and intimate relationships. For example, studies have found that Machiavellianism and psychopathy were negatively associated with the quality of intimate relationships (Ali & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2010; Jonason, Li, & Buss, 2010). Studies have also found that the dark triad, especially Machiavellianism and psychopathy, can predict conflicts in communication, which often entails the termination of relationship (Horan, Guinn, & Banghart, 2015). On the other hand, the association between narcissism and intimate relationships remains unclear (Furnham et al., 2013; Muris et al., 2017). Back and Vazire (2015) suggested exploring mechanism that can explain the association between personality and social outcomes. However, the mechanism underlying the relationship between dark traits and intimate relationship outcomes so far have been rarely explored. The vulnerability stress adaptation model (VSA) proposed by Karney and Bradbury (1995) considers the influence of personality on relationship satisfaction and stability in the form of enduring vulnerabilities. In particular, the authors proposed an indirect influence of personality traits on partner relationships through stressful events and the capacity to adapt to such events. For example, spouses’ self-rating of their childhood in their original family is related to the number of specific complaints about their own marriage as well as general attitudes towards the marriage system (Franklin, Janoff-Bulman, & Roberts, 1990). Similarly, couples’ traits have been associated directly with the quality of their interactions; conflict and negative emotion, in particular, have been linked to the attributions couples make for partner behaviors (Karney, Bradbury, Fincham, & Sullivan, 1994). In addition, evaluation of marital quality is expected to either improve or impair couples’ abilities to engage in effective marital problem solving, to provide emotional support for each other, and to adapt to stressful events (Karney & Bradbury, 1995). Therefore, we used a cross-sectional perspective to examine the relationship between dark personality and marital instability and further explore its mechanism in an actorpartner interdependence mediation model (APIMeM, see Fig. 1; Ledermann, Macho, & Kenny, 2011). Furthermore, the traditional assessment of dark personality has been criticized for not always generalizing across cultures very well (Muris et al., 2017). However, according to the findings of several studies, reliable data that illustrate dark personality have predictive power in non-U.S. sample (Geng et al., 2017; He et al., 2018). It is a well-known historical fact that since the introduction of the Reform and Opening-Up policy in the late 1970s, exchanges between China and occidental countries have substantially arisen. Along with this trend and acceleration of economic globalization, internet and social media have come to play an increasingly vital role in people's life, resulting in a large number of behaviors and lifestyles becoming more and more consistent all over the world (Xu, Xie, Liu, Xia, & Liu, 2007). Moreover,
2. Method 2.1. Participants and measures Participants were 292 heterosexual married couples from Beijing recruited through convenience sampling by social media (Wechat, Weibo, BBS) and advertisement in local communities. After screening based on demographic variables including age (under the age of 45), educational background (high school or above), the data of 260 couples were eventually adopted. The ages of male participants range from 23 to 40 years old while ages of female participants range from 20 to 39. The length of their marriage ranges from 0.5 to 7 years (M = 2.68, SD = 1.57). The length of their dating before marriage ranges from 1 to 7 years (M = 2.42, SD = 1.44). 2.2. Measures 2.2.1. Mach IV We measured Machiavellianism using the 20-item Mach-IV (Christie & Geis, 1970). Both men and women were asked to which degree they agreed (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree) with statements such as “If you always have unreserved trust in others, you are asking for trouble”. For the partner-report version, the instructions were modified as necessary to ensure that participants would report the opinion their partner most likely held (the same for the psychopathy measurement in 2.2.2). The items were averaged to create an index of Machiavellianism. The Cronbach's alphas of this scale in the current study were 0.75 for self-rating and 0.79 for partner-rating. 2.2.2. The Levenson self-report psychopathy scale We used the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (LSRP, Levenson, Kiehl, & Fitzpatrick, 1995) to measure the psychopathy of partners. The original inventory includes two subscales and 26 items in total, with the primary psychopathy subscale comprising 16 items and the secondary psychopathy subscale comprising 10 items. Because the participants in the prior study were all sub-clinical samples, we only used the primary psychopathy subscale (Newman, MacCoon, Vaughn, & Sadeh, 2005). Participants were asked to choose from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree) to indicate the degree of their agreement with the statements such as “My main purpose in life is getting as many goodies as I can”. In the current research, the Cronbach's alphas of the 2
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Fig. 1. The theoretical model for the current study.
2.4. Procedure
Levenson self-report psychopathy scale were 0.77 for self-rating and 0.81 for partner-rating.
Participants were invited to participate in the study on a voluntary basis. They were invited to the laboratory in pairs, or alternatively, directed to a private webpage and asked to complete a series of questionnaires independently using computers in two separate rooms. The questionnaires were presented in a counterbalanced order. Finally, couples were given digital feedback reports and 80 RMB for their participation.
2.2.3. Marital quality We measured marriage quality using the 6-item Quality Marriage Index (QMI; Norton, 1983). The scale measures participants’ satisfaction with their intimate relationships. Participants rated items about how much they liked their marriage (e.g., “My marriage with my partner makes me happy”) on a 7-point Likert scale (1=very strong disagreement, 7=very strong agreement). The sixth is the topic of an overall assessment from "1=very unhappy" to "10=very happy". The higher the total score, the higher the degree of marital satisfaction and the higher marital quality would be. The Cronbach's alphas in our study was 0.94.
3. Results 3.1. Correlations Correlations and descriptive statistics are shown in Table 1. The results showed that all the measures were significantly correlated with each other. The data were fit for further exploration of path analysis.
2.2.4. Marital instability scale (short form) We used the short form 5-item Marital Instability Scale (Booth et al., 1983) to measure the marital stability. The couples were asked to report the frequency of the given incidents (e.g., “Have you ever thought about divorce of separation in the past 6 months”) using never (1) to very often (4). The higher the score, the more unstable the marriage would be. The Cronbach's alpha of the Marital Instability Scale was 0.89.
3.2. The structural equation model The structural equation model was tested in Mplus 7 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2012). After controlling for a series of confounding variables, including marital length, income, age, and level of education, the two hypothesized models showed good fit to the data given the complexity of the overall model. For Model 1 (Machiavellianism), χ² = 30.066, df = 16, p < 0.05, RMSEA=0.058 (95% CI = 0.024–0.090), CFI = 0.979, TLI = 0.950, SRMR = 0.049 (shown in Fig. 2). For Model 2 (psychopathy), χ² = 27.905, df = 16, p < 0.05, RMSEA=0.053 (95% CI = 0.015–0.086), CFI = 0.982, TLI = 0.956, SRMR = 0.060 (shown in Fig. 3).
2.3. Actor-partner interdependence mediation model (APIMeM) The current study used the Actor-Partner Interdependence Mediation Models (APIMeMs; Ledermann et al., 2011) to separately examine the actor, partner, and mediation effects. Actor effects describe the relationship between one's own personality traits and marital stability. In addition, partner effects describe the relationship between one's own personality traits and one's partner's marital stability. We have tested the mediation effect of marital quality between dark personality and marital instability in the APIMeM, which is becoming more common in the research of relationships (Smith et al., 2014). In order to avoid social desirability bias, we adopted both self- and partner-ratings of dark traits instead of only individual partner's personality measurements.
3.2.1. Direct effect analysis. Results show that (Figs. 2 and 3) there was neither direct effect between Machiavellianism and marital instability, nor direct effect between psychopathy and marital instability. We found that both dark personalities affected marital instability through marital quality. Specifically, women partner-rating Machiavellianism had significant actor effects (b = −0.163, t = −3.483) and partner effects on martial quality (b = −0.209, t = −4.331), women partner-rating psychopathy had significant actor effects (b = −0.255, t = −6.183) and partner effects on martial quality (b = −0.259, t = −6.331). As expected, marital quality had significant actor and partner effects on marital instability (see Figs. 2 and 3). 3
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Table 1 Correlations for all variables.
1 Machiavellianism_men_self 2 Machiavellianism_women_self 3 Machiavellianism_men_partner 4 Machiavellianism_women_patner 5 psychopathy_men_self 6 psychopathy_women_self 7 psychopathy_men_partner 8 psychopathy_women_patner 9 Marital quality_men 10 Marital quality_women 11 Marital instability_men 12 Marital instability_women
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
– 0.331⁎⁎ 0.291⁎⁎ 0.507⁎⁎ 0.599⁎⁎ 0.213⁎⁎ 0.278⁎⁎ 0.321⁎⁎ −0.373⁎⁎ −0.252⁎⁎ 0.264⁎⁎ 0.187⁎⁎
– 0.408⁎⁎ 0.342⁎⁎ 0.320⁎⁎ 0.557⁎⁎ 0.317⁎⁎ 0.317⁎⁎ −0.298⁎⁎ −0.366⁎⁎ 0.173⁎⁎ 0.271⁎⁎
– 0.247⁎⁎ 0.230⁎⁎ 0.315⁎⁎ 0.643⁎⁎ 0.175⁎⁎ −0.262⁎⁎ −0.370⁎⁎ 0.240⁎⁎ 0.332⁎⁎
– 0.407⁎⁎ 0.288⁎⁎ 0.232⁎⁎ 0.612⁎⁎ −0.376⁎⁎ −0.310⁎⁎ 0.321⁎⁎ 0.317⁎⁎
– 0.353⁎⁎ 0.425⁎⁎ 0.617⁎⁎ −0.315⁎⁎ −0.264⁎⁎ 0.248⁎⁎ 0.185⁎⁎
– 0.537⁎⁎ 0.368⁎⁎ −0.279⁎⁎ −0.302⁎⁎ 0.234⁎⁎ 0.244⁎⁎
– 0.343⁎⁎ −0.274⁎⁎ −0.359⁎⁎ 0.238⁎⁎ 0.255⁎⁎
– −0.441⁎⁎ −0.406⁎⁎ 0.352⁎⁎ 0.356⁎⁎
– 0.603⁎⁎ −0.606⁎⁎ −0.512⁎⁎
– −0.518⁎⁎ −0.631⁎⁎
– 0.685⁎⁎
instability, and marital quality was found to be a completely mediated variable between dark personality and marital stability. The VSA model emphasizes the existence of multiple paths in an intimate relationship that can explain marital quality and stability (Karney & Bradbury, 1995). Marital quality as an intermediate variable is closely related to the individual's vulnerability, stress events, and the ability to adjust, which in turn has an effect on marital stability (Karney & Bradbury, 1995; Mund et al., 2016). Prediction 2 received mixed support. Women's partner-rating Machiavellianism had a significant actor-partner effect on the marital quality, and men's partner-reported Machiavellianism had a significant partner-effect on the women's marital quality. Paulhus and Williams (2002) argued that individuals high in Machiavellianism emphasize realism, focus on results, and tend to be manipulative. Recent research also revealed that Machiavellian help people “get ahead of’’ but not necessarily ‘‘get along with’’ others in their workplace and family. Nevertheless, individuals high in Machiavellianism benefit from a more strategic and regulated mating style (such as love-struck and selfless style) that maintains the relationship (Furnham et al., 2013; Jonason et al., 2010). In addition, studies have found that collecting partner-reported data can lead to more accurate estimation, leading to larger partner effects (Furler et al., 2014; Orth, 2013). Partner-rating Machiavellianism, as well as psychopathy, has been shown by previous studies to be significantly correlated with marital quality, with high level of Machiavellianism generally associated with worse relationship quality (Cook & Kenny, 2005; Mund et al., 2016; Wilson, Harris, & Vazire, 2015). One potential explanation for the discrepancy between
3.2.2. Indirect effect analysis There are several indirect effects in the model, the specific path, indirect effect values and confidence intervals are shown in Table 2. The results showed that the Machiavellianism of both men and women with self-report had a significant indirect effect on marital instability (see lines 1–4 of Table 2). Similarly, the partner-rating Machiavellianism had a significant indirect effect on marital instability (see lines 5–8 of Table 2), and the marital quality played a complete mediating role (as depicted in Fig. 2; Predictions 1 and 2). Also, the details of the indirect effects between psychopathy and marital instability via marital quality results are shown in Table 2, and the specific paths of relationships are shown in Fig. 3. There was no significant effect on both men and women with self-report. Both men's and women's partner-ratings had a significant indirect effect on marital instability (see lines 9–14 of Table 2; Prediction 2). Both men's and women's marital quality mediated the actor and partner effect of partner-rating psychopathy on marital instability (see lines 11–14 of Table 2; Predictions 1 and 2).
4. Discussion The current study examined the concurrent relationship between self- and partner-rating Machiavellianism and psychopathy on intimate relationships. We further used the Actor-partner Interdependence Mediation Model to explore the underlying mechanism of this relationship. Consistent with our Prediction 1, the results showed that both Machiavellianism and psychopathy had indirect effects on marital
Fig. 2. Actor-partner interdependence model results for the direct and mediated (via marital quality) association between Machiavellianism and marital instability for 260 couples. Numbers are unstandardized regression coefficients. 4
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Fig. 3. Actor-partner interdependence model results for the direct and mediated (via marital quality) association between psychopathy and marital instability for 260 couples. Numbers are unstandardized regression coefficients. Table 2 APIMeM results for the indirect effect.
Machiavellianism_men_self→Quality_men→Instability_men Machiavellianism_women_self→Quality_women→Instability_women Machiavellianism_men_self→Quality_men→Instability_women Machiavellianism_women_self→Quality_women→Instability_men Machiavellianism_men_partner→Quality_women→Instability_women Machiavellianism_men_partner→Quality_women→Instability_men Machiavellianism_women_partner→Quality_men→Instability_men Machiavellianism_women_partner→Quality_women→Instability_women Psychopathy_men_partner →Quality_women→instability_women Psychopathy_men_partner→Quality_women→instability_men Psychopathy_women_partner→Quality_women→instability_women Psychopathy_women_partner→Quality_men→instability_women Psychopathy_women_partner→Quality_women→instability_men Psychopathy_women_partner→Quality_men→instability_men
Actor-partner effect
b
[95% CI]
p
= = = = = = = = = = = = = =
0.026 0.035 0.013 0.015 0.036 0.015 0.030 0.027 0.034 0.015 0.042 0.018 0.018 0.037
[0.01,0.05] [0.01,.0.06] [0.00,0.03] [0.00,0.03] [0.01,0.06] [0.00,0.03] [0.00,0.05] [0.00,0.05] [0.01,0.06] [0.00,0.03] [0.01,0.08] [0.00,0.04] [0.00,0.04] [0.02,0.06]
0.017* 0.004* 0.050* 0.027* 0.008** 0.043* 0.024* 0.031* 0.002** 0.022** 0.009** 0.047* 0.034* 0.001**
Actor→Actor Actor→Actor Actor→Partner Actor→Partner Partner→Actor Partner→Partner Partner→Actor Actor→Actor Partner→Actor Partner→Partner Actor→Actor Actor→Partner Partner→Partner Partner→Actor
Note: N = 260 couples. A=Actor effect, P=Partner effect. ⁎ p < 0.05. ⁎⁎ p < 0.01.
current findings and previous research is that some studies have found that men are less sensitive to marital quality than women (Furnham et al., 2013), which possibly accounts for the result that men did not report a significant difference in marital quality due to the difference in their partner-reported Machiavellianism. Both partners have neither actor effect nor partner effect on marital quality in terms of self-reported psychopathy. One reason for this may be that psychopathy is more genetically based and mainly characterized by deficient emotional reactivity in a highly interactive close relationship and is more extreme in terms of viciousness and thus has more social and personal costs than Machiavellianism (Kardum et al., 2017; Repacholi, Slaughter, Pritchard, & Gibbs, 2003). Recent research found that women who view their husbands as more antagonistic and disinhibited have marriages that are more likely to end in an interdependent interpersonal context (Weiss et al., 2018). The second may be due to the controlling for shared variance among the dark personality revealed that psychopathy is the most malevolent and dark trait, accounting for unique variance in various psychosocial outcomes such as intimate relationship especially in partner's perspective (Jonason & Schmitt, 2012; Muris et al., 2017). Weiss et al. (2018) revealed that husband's partner-rated psychopathic traits were a significant predictor of divorce and partner-ratings hold above and beyond the effect of one's own personality traits. Similarly, previous research consistently suggested
that partner-reports, instead of self-reports, provide substantial incremental validity in the study of outcomes associated with psychopathy studied in a marital context (Fowler & Lilienfeld, 2007). Thirdly, LSRP has a certain degree of desirability deficit caused by social desirability, resulting in low levels of self-rating psychopathy (Brinkley, Schmitt, Smith & Newman, 2001). Muris et al. (2017) also argued that friends, family members, and romantic partners were invited to fill in dark triad questionnaires about the participants, thereby providing important collateral information. Therefore, the other-informant rating is strongly recommended for future research on the dark personality because it would be one strategy to circumvent fake-good reporting biases. Compared with previous studies, our study has several advantages. First, the current research improved the theoretical framework of personality and relationship. We mainly focused on the relationship between dark personality and marital instability, while previous studies mostly focused on general and social expectation personality traits. Secondly, the APIMeM model was used to explain the mechanism of the relationship between dark personality traits and intimate relationship, which laid a foundation for future research. Third, we added partnerrating here not only to eliminate common method bias caused by selfrating, but also to increase the explanation rate of relationship outcomes. However, there are some limitations in the current study. The LSRP, as one of the most widely used psychopathic measurement tools, 5
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especially in terms of women's self-rating, is obviously influenced by cravings for social approval. It would be much more advisable if further research uses more objective methods like diary study or behavior observation. In addition, it should be noted that this study examined only the correlation between dark personality and intimate relationships from a cross-sectional perspective. Further research is expected to use a longitudinal perspective to examine the effects between dark personality and relationships. In addition to theoretical advances, there are some significant practical implications for improving close relationship. On one hand, previous research found Machiavellianism had some adaptive value and was positively related to social outcomes (Furnham et al., 2013). Therefore, couples in an intimate relationship should keep an open mind about Machiavellianism in their partners and try to get along with them rather than provoke their manipulative motivation. On the other hand, the so-called “James Bond psychology” and belief that “cunning men attract women” are prevalent in western and Chinese culture (Furnham & Trickey, 2011; Jonason, Li, & Teicher, 2010). However, the negative effects of women's perspectives on their husbands’ satisfaction take time to unfold; respectively, these men show a tendency to find marriage increasingly dissatisfying as time elapses. As a result, people, especially women, should beware of their partners’ fatal attraction and make rational decisions before starting a long-term intimate relationship.
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