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Dark side of impulsivity — Associations between the Dark Triad, self-report and behavioral measures of impulsivity
Personality and Individual Differences 88 (2016) 197–201
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Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Dark side of impulsivity — Associations between the Dark Triad, self-report and behavioral measures of impulsivity Marta Malesza a,⁎, Paweł Ostaszewski b a b
University of Warsaw, Poland University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Chodakowska 19/31, 03-815 Warsaw, Poland
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 5 January 2015 Received in revised form 7 September 2015 Accepted 11 September 2015 Available online 22 September 2015 Keywords: Dark Triad Impulsivity Self-report measures Behavioral measures
a b s t r a c t Associations between the Dark Triad (psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism) with two self-report personality measures (i.e., BIS-11 and I7) and two behavioral tasks (i.e., Stop-Signal task and Delay-Discounting task) of impulsivity in 298 healthy adult volunteers were examined. The strong correlations between psychopathy, narcissism, and self-report measures of impulsivity were reported. Moreover, the variables of the Dark Triad mentioned above have shown weak correlations with behavioral tasks of impulsivity. Contrary, Machiavellianism was unrelated to either type of impulsivity assessment. When testing the association between the self-report and behavioral measures of impulsivity, analysis revealed only two significant correlations. There was a positive correlation between Motor Impulsivity of the BIS-11 and stop-reaction time on the Stop-Signal task, and the Impulsivity scale from I7 was negatively related to the AUC value from Delay-Discounting task. Reliably, these results support other recent findings suggesting that self-report and behavioral tasks probably measure different constructs, perhaps unrelated components of impulsive behavior. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Considering the possibility that individuals might have a dispositional tendency to show impulsive behavior bears considering the traits of the Dark Triad (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). The Dark Triad, comprising of psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism, represents a set of three distinct, but related subclinical maladaptive and socially aversive personality characteristics. Psychopathy is defined by high callousness, thrill-seeking, interpersonal antagonism and manipulation, and by low empathy, remorse, and anxiety (Hare & Neumann, 2008). Individuals with a high degree of Narcissism focus largely on themselves and are characterized by self-absorption, dominance, and feelings of entitlement (Emmons, 1987). Machiavellianism is characterized by self-interest and the tendency toward deception, manipulation and the exploitation of others (Christie & Geis, 1970). 1.1. Impulsivity The construct of “impulsivity” has been defined as an inability to inhibit inappropriate behaviors, to wait and to act with forethought (e.g., Barratt & Patton, 1983; Eysenck, Pearson, Easting, & Allsopp, 1985). Impulsivity encompasses a range of maladaptive characteristics that are often linked to constructs studied in the field of psychopathology, such ⁎ Corresponding author at: Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Stawki 5/7, 00-183 Warsaw, Poland. E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Malesza).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.09.016 0191-8869/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; e.g., Barkley, 1997) and substance abuse (e.g., deWit, 2008). In order to assess behaviors that are considered impulsive, a variety of measurement methods have been developed. These methods can be categorized as (1) self-report questionnaires, that assess an individual's self-perception of their own behaviors across a variety of contexts, and (2) laboratory behavioral tasks, which assess specific behavioral processes (Reynolds, Ortengren, Richards, & de Wit, 2006; Reynolds, Richards, Horn, & Karraker, 2004). Moreover, previous research tried to identify different dimensions of impulsive behavior that has differed across two methods of impulsivity assessment — self-report and laboratory behavioral methods. For example, there has been considerable research to explore discrete categories of impulsivity using self-report procedures, which usually results in as few as three (e.g., impulsiveness, empathy, venturesomeness; Eysenck, Daum, Schugens, & Diehl, 1990), or as many as six different subfactors of impulsive behavior (e.g., motor impulsivity, attention, self-control, cognitive complexity, perseverance, cognitive instability; Barratt & Patton, 1983). On the other hand, research using laboratory behavioral measures of impulsivity identified two subfactors: “impulsive disinhibition” (in which individuals were expected to inhibit motor behaviors; measures like the Stop-Signal task; Logan, Schachar, & Tannock, 1997) and “impulsive decision-making” (measures that involved participants making decisions about delayed versus immediate outcomes, i.e., Delay-Discounting task; Reynolds et al., 2006). Finally, both self-report and laboratory behavioral measurement methods of impulsivity have been studied extensively in their own research context. However, some recent studies indicate that self-report
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and behavioral assessments are not, or are only weakly correlated (e.g., Lane, Cherek, Rhodes, Pietras, & Techeremissine, 2003; Reynolds et al., 2004, 2006). Consequently, these findings indicate that the tendency for impulsive behaviors assessed by laboratory behavioral procedures may not be the same as those detected by self-report assessments.
1.2. Dark Triad and impulsivity Two “dark” personality traits linked to impulsivity are narcissism (Raskin & Hall, 1981) and psychopathy (Jakobwitz & Egan, 2006). Given the differential pattern of associations with the self-reported impulsivity, Jones and Paulhus (2011) showed that narcissism was correlated with functional impulsivity whereas psychopathy was most closely associated with dysfunctional impulsivity. Crysel, Crosier, and Webster (2013) concluded that self-reported impulsivity moderately correlated with the Dark Triad Dirty Dozen composite and its three subscales of psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. On the other hand, the association between Machiavellianism and self-reported impulsivity was inconsistent, with one sample showing a weak positive correlation (Crysel et al., 2013) and the other showing no significant relation (Jones & Paulhus, 2011). The lack of associations indicates that, although Machiavellians have no better impulse control than non-Machiavellians, they certainly have the advantage over narcissists and psychopaths. Machiavellians are manipulators who possess (at least) a modicum of self-control. Their moderate impulse control allows Machiavellians to refrain from counterproductive behaviors despite their selfish intentions (Jonason & Tost, 2010; Jones & Paulhus, 2011). Furthermore, in case of behaviorally assessed impulsivity, the narcissism component of the Dark Triad was positively related to steeper delay discounting (Crysel et al., 2013). Delay (temporal) discounting is recognized as a possible mechanism of impulsive behavior (for a review, see Madden & Bickel, 2010). Discounting refers to decrease of the subjective value of money or another reward as a delay to its receipt increases. Specifically, if someone chooses a smaller sooner reward over a larger but more delayed reward, this behavior is termed impulsive, whereas if someone forgoes a smaller sooner reward to receive a larger later reward, this behavior is termed self-controlled (Reynolds et al., 2004). Thus, people with a high level of narcissism preferred less money immediately to more money later (Crysel et al., 2013). Also, a marginally significant positive correlation also appeared for psychopathy and temporal discounting. These results suggest that the relationship between delay discounting may be driven by narcissism and, to a lesser degree, by psychopathy. However, Machiavellianism was not significantly associated with steeper temporal discounting (Crysel et al., 2013). Despite the study linking the Dark Triad with steeper discounting rate of delayed outcomes, there is no systematic research linking the behavioral inhibition of impulsivity to the Dark Triad. One limitation of previous Dark Triad research on impulsivity is that typically, various measures of impulsivity have not been simultaneously administrated. Instead, most studies have relied on a single measure. No studies have explicitly combined self-report approaches with behaviorally-based approaches of impulsivity. Consequently, the relations among self-report and behavioral measures of impulsivity together with the Dark Triad concept are not well understood. This kind of focused approach does not allow for comparisons between different impulsivity tasks and the “dark” personality, and as a result, provides an incomplete view of impulsive characteristics. To date, the most comprehensive study on both self-reported and behavioral impulsivity and their associations with the Dark Triad (Crysel et al., 2013) used only a brief measure of the Dark Triad (i.e., Dirty Dozen scale; Jonason & Webster, 2010). Unfortunately, the scale appears to be too short, containing only four items per each construct measured by the Dark Triad. As a result, the instrument has been criticized in several recent reports (Lee et al., 2013; Miller et al., 2012).
1.3. Hypothesis Consistent with the findings of Crysel et al. (2013), we expected to find significant strong positive associations between the self-reported impulsivity and the Dark Triad traits of narcissism and psychopathy (Hypothesis 1), and a weaker positive correlation between behavioral impulsivity and narcissism and psychopathy (Hypothesis 2). Whereas, Machiavellianism may be slightly correlated with self-reported measures of impulsivity (Hypothesis 3). There are also conceptual reasons to subdivide into separate components of impulsivity self-report and behavioral measure methods that are thought to represent different underlying processes. Several other previous studies demonstrated that self-report measures of the trait of impulsivity were not related to performance on the behavioral tasks (e.g., Lane et al., 2003; Reynolds et al., 2004, 2006). Consequently, we predicted that the association between impulsivity measured by self-report and behavioral tasks will be weakly correlated or not correlated significantly (Hypothesis 4).
2. Methodology The study was designed and conducted using a within-subjects design, with each participant exposed to all of the conditions. Research participation involved the completion of the three Dark Triad inventories, two personality measures of impulsivity (Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 and I7), and two behavioral tasks of impulsivity containing a measure of behavioral inhibition (Stop-Signal task) and a delay-ofreward task (see below). The order of the tasks was counterbalanced across individuals. Data were collected in an online study administered via a tool for online surveys: www.soscisurvey.de. We ran the experiment using WebExp (Keller, 1999), a software package for running psychological experiments online. WebExp is implemented in Java and uses a client–server architecture which gives the experimenter maximal control over stimulus presentation and collection of responses. A strong point is WebExp's timing component, which includes both the timing of the presentation of stimulus, and the measurement of response times. The web-based data collected previously in several experiments provided a close match with the data collected under controlled laboratory conditions (Keller, Gunasekharan, Mayo, & Corley, 2009).
2.1. Participants and procedure 298 German university students participated in the experiment (138 men and 160 women, ranging in age from 18 to 29 years, M = 21.8, SD = 1.52). Individuals were recruited from a volunteer database. Inclusion criteria included being over 18-years-old, and having no history of psychological illness. All participants provided informed consent after the nature of the study had been explained to them.
2.2. Materials 2.2.1. Dark Triad measures Psychopathy was assessed with a 30-item version of the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale-III (Williams, Nathanson, & Paulhus, 2003; authors' own translation to German). Answers were given on a five-point Likert-type scale (from 0 = not at all like me to 4 = totally like me; Cronbach's α = .93). Narcissism was measured with the 17-item Narcissistic Personality Inventory (German version by von Collani, 2008) with a five-point Likert-type scale (from 0 = not at all like me to 4 = totally like me; Cronbach's α = .85). Machiavellianism was assessed with an 18-item scale (German version by Henning & Six, 2008). Answer format was a six-point Likert-type scale (from 0 = not at all like me to 5 = totally like me; Cronbach's α = .76).
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2.2.2. Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 The BIS-11 is a widely used personality test of impulsivity (German version by Hartmann, Rief, & Hilbert, 2011). It contains 30 statements (with an answer format on a four-point Likert-type scale, from 1 = rarely/never to 4 = almost always/always), which constitute six factors: self-control (6 items; Cronbach's α = .81), attention impulsivity (5 items; Cronbach's α = .80), motor impulsivity (7 items; Cronbach's α = .88), cognitive instability (3 items; Cronbach's α = .86), cognitive complexity (5 items; Cronbach's α = .82), and perseverance (4 items; Cronbach's α = .73). 2.2.3. I7 The I7 was developed to measure impulsivity within the framework of Eysenck's conception of impulsivity (German version by Eysenck et al., 1990). It consists of 54 items with a yes/no answer format, divided into three scales: impulsiveness (19 items Cronbach's α = .83), empathy (19 items; Cronbach's α = .85), and venturesomeness (16 items; Cronbach's α = .78).
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Table 1 Descriptive statistics and sex differences for all variables. Men N = 130
Psychopathy Narcissism Machiavellianism BIS-11: Attention BIS-11: Motor impulsivity BIS-11: Self-control BIS-11: Perseverance BIS-11: Cognitive complexity BIS-11: Cognitive instability I7: Impulsivity I7: Venturesome I7: Empathy Delay-Discounting task (AUC) Stop task (milliseconds) Social desirability
Women N = 168
F (1, 296)
M
(SD)
M
(SD)
10.35 8.19 24.13 11.08 18.57 11.63 7.28 13.75 4.13 7.85 7.95 10.50 .387 990 4.45
1.61 2.20 7.50 2.31 6.45 4.60 2.93 5.35 1.16 3.71 2.93 4.16 .130 365 .58
7.10 7.93 18.21 12.90 16.23 12.77 6.59 13.25 4.94 5.32 7.21 12.39 .563 870 5.07
2.05 2.54 9.35 3.08 4.60 3.90 2.24 5.62 2.02 3.30 2.84 3.83 .169 290 .83
5.13⁎ .484 4.49⁎ −1.11 1.48 −2.03 29.53 27.74 27.50 −3.94 −3.81 1.08⁎ 1.69⁎ −1.39 2.09
⁎ p b .05.
2.2.4. Delay-Discounting task Discounting was assessed at five delay intervals (1, 7, 30, 180, and 365 days later; procedure adapted from Richards, Zhang, Mitchell, & de Wit, 1999). On each delay task trial, participants chose between € 200 available after a delay (i.e., 1, 7, 30, 180, or 365 days) and a smaller amount of money available immediately (i.e., ‘Would you rather have € 60 now or € 200 in 30 days?’). This computerized task used an adjusting amount procedure (adjusting the immediate amount in increments or decrements of ±€ 20) to derive indifference points between the delayed standard and immediate adjusting options for each of the five delays assessed. The procedure was repeated until an indifference value was obtained for each delay condition. Each indifference value was determined for each participant by taking the smallest amount of money where the participant switched preference from immediate instead of the delayed standard amount (€ 200) at the specific delay (see Richards et al., 1999). An area-under-the-curve (AUC) method was used to characterize the delay discounting rate (Myerson, Green, & Warusawitharana, 2001). Obtained AUC value represents a proportion on a range between 0.0 and 1.0 where larger AUC values are indicative of slower or no discounting and lower AUC values mean greater levels of discounting. 2.2.5. Stop-Signal task The Stop-Signal Time was derived from the task of Logan et al. (1997). The procedure has been used extensively in order to test abilities of inhibition. Participants were instructed to respond to a visual “go” signal as quickly as possible (75% of the trials), but to withhold this response when an auditory “stop” signal is presented (25% of the trials). The stop signal was presented at varying delays (in milliseconds) following by an auditory stop signal, and subjects were instructed to withhold their responses. The delay to the stop signal was varied systematically across trials according to the participant's performance until a delay was found at which the individuals inhibited their responses on approximately 50% of trials. This procedure provides an estimate of the time taken to stop a response, the stop reaction time (SRT). Longer stop reaction times (SRTs) are taken to indicate poor behavioral inhibition and more impulsive responding. 2.2.6. Social desirability Finally, social desirability was considered as a control variable and measured with the 17-item Social Desirability Scale (German version by Stöber, 1999) using a true-false answer format (Cronbach's α = .90). 3. Results Descriptive statistics for all variables and sex differences are reported in Table 1.
3.1. Relations among dark personality variables Narcissism and Machiavellianism were least related, with psychopathy correlating with both Machiavellianism and narcissism. We conducted a Principal Component Analysis on all three Dark Triad measures. All three loaded well (N.70; with highest loading for psychopathy and lowest loading for narcissism) on a single factor that accounted for 32.6% of the variance (Eigen N 1.25). However, it is not recommended that a composite measure of the Dark Triad be created for analysis (e.g., Furnham, Richards, & Paulhus, 2013). Although positively correlated, the Dark Triad traits are quite distinct and reflect unique tendencies. Finally, social desirability level was not significantly associated with the Dark Triad variables (all p N .05). This finding suggests that selves do not distort responses when rating themselves on potentially ego-involving traits (e.g., Stöber, 1999). 3.2. Main effects for gender Performing t-tests of ANOVA least squares means for gender differences on the Dark Triad scales, self-reported and behavioral impulsivity measures (including a Bonferroni correction for a multiple comparisons), showed that men scored higher on the Machiavellianism and Psychopathy scales. Additionally, men showed smaller AUC (discounted delay rewards more steeply) in the Delay-Discounting measure (i.e., performed more impulsively than women). Women scored slightly higher than men did on the Empathy scale of the I7. On all other variables men and women scored similarly. 3.3. Associations between impulsivity and the Dark Triad Table 2 shows correlations between the Dark Triad traits, self-report and behavioral measures of impulsivity. As predicted, the Dark Triad two subscales of psychopathy and narcissism were each positively correlated with most subscales of the BIS-11 (Machiavellianism being the exception). The strongest relation was found between the psychopathy and Motor Impulsivity subscale, whereas the weakest correlation was observed between the Narcissism and Attention scale. Moreover, as expected, the Impulsivity subscale of the I7 was positively correlated with the Dark Triad components, psychopathy and narcissism. The Empathy subscale was negatively related to the Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Behavioral impulsivity correlates less consistently with the Dark Triad traits, compared with the self-reported impulsivity. The most prominently associated “dark” personality factor appears to be
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Table 2 Correlation matrix (N = 298) comparing all measures of Dark Triad and impulsivity.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Dark Triad measures
Self-report impulsivity measures
1
2
3
4
5
–
.446⁎⁎
.316⁎⁎ .236⁎⁎
.360⁎⁎ .179⁎
.563⁎⁎ .297⁎⁎
–
−.035 –
.001 .286⁎⁎ –
–
Behavioral impulsivity measures
6
7
8
9
10
.049 .190⁎ .015 .201⁎⁎ .119⁎
.258⁎⁎ .206⁎⁎
.187⁎ .522⁎⁎ .222⁎⁎ .116⁎ .410⁎⁎ .267⁎⁎ .274⁎⁎
.318⁎⁎ .313⁎⁎ .254⁎⁎
.243⁎⁎ .194⁎
–
.002 .538⁎⁎ .114⁎ .491⁎⁎ –
–
.039 .207⁎⁎ .151⁎ .016 .181⁎ –
.025 .355⁎⁎ .013 .046 .421⁎⁎ .173⁎ −.098 –
11
12
13
14
−.019 .182⁎ .014 .240⁎⁎ .141⁎ .176⁎ .377⁎⁎ .302⁎⁎ .145⁎ .262⁎⁎
−.236⁎⁎
−.184⁎
.037 −.249⁎⁎ .264⁎⁎ .278⁎⁎
.058 −.090 .010 .089 −.080 −.044 .023 .045 −.140⁎ .009 .033 –
.162⁎ .121⁎ −.064 .073 .174⁎
–
.016 .382⁎⁎ −.009 .393⁎⁎ .242⁎⁎ .187⁎ –
−.091 −.058 −.060 .102 −.037 −.042 .012 −.346⁎⁎ –
1. Psychopathy; 2. Narcissism; 3. Machiavellianism; 4. BIS-11: Attention; 5. BIS-11: Motor impulsivity; 6. BIS-11: Self-control; 7. BIS-11: Cognitive complexity; 8. BIS-11: Perseverance; 9. BIS-11: Cognitive instability; 10. I7: Impulsivity; 11. I7: Venturesome; 12. I7: Empathy; 13: Delay-Discounting task; 14: Stop Task. ⁎ p b .05. ⁎⁎ p b .01.
psychopathy, which is negatively (although weakly) associated with the behavioral impulsive decision-making measured by the DelayDiscounting task (i.e., individuals high in psychopathy preferred smaller sum of money immediately instead of bigger outcome later), and with stop-signal reaction time (individuals high in psychopathy present poorer behavioral inhibition). Whereas, narcissism was weakly significantly correlated with the stop reaction time (people high in narcissism scored longer stop reaction time values and, consequently, presented more impulsive responding). 3.4. Self-report and laboratory behavioral measures of impulsivity Most of the scales of each of the self-report measures of impulsivity positively correlated with other self-report measure (i.e., BIS-11 and I7; the stronger correlation between Cognitive Complex from BIS-11 and Impulsivity form I7), and between subscales of the same instruments (e.g., BIS-11). Moreover, both behavioral impulsivity measures (i.e., Delay-Discounting task and Stop-Signal task) were significantly associated (participants' smaller AUC value delay discounting correlated with stronger impulsive responding). By contrast, analysis conducted between self-report and behavioral measurement methods of impulsivity revealed only two significant correlations. There was a positive correlation between Motor Impulsivity of the BIS-11 and stop-reaction time on the Stop-Signal measure (participants with longer stop-signals time on the Stop-Signal task presented higher motor impulsivity), and a correlation between Impulsivity scale from I7 was negatively related to the AUC value from Delay-Discounting task (individuals higher on Impulsivity preferred immediate outcomes instead of bigger delayed ones in the Delay-Discounting task). 4. Discussion The aim of the present research was to examine (a) the relationship among the Dark Triad traits and impulsivity-related traits and behaviors and (b) to test the associations between self-report and behavioral measures of impulsivity. Based on the previous findings, we hypothesized that correlations among the Dark Triad traits and various personality tasks of impulsivity would be moderate (Crysel et al., 2013; Jones & Paulhus, 2011), but that “dark” personality measures would be only slightly correlated with the behavioral measures of impulsivity (Crysel et al., 2013). We expected that self-report and behavioral measures of impulsivity should be slightly related or completely uncorrelated and, consequently, assess different processes (Reynolds et al., 2004, 2006).
Both self-report and behavioral-task studies support the idea that impulsivity is linked to the Dark Triad. What is most evident from the correlation analyses is that psychopathy and narcissism are each positively and significantly (although weakly in some cases) related to both two self-reported impulsivity measures (Hypothesis 1). That is, higher scores psychopathy and narcissism scales relate with higher self-reported impulsivity traits. Additionally, psychopathy was correlated with both behavioral impulsivity measures, whereas narcissism was associated with the Stop-Signal task, but not correlated with behavioral Delay-Discounting measure (Hypothesis 2; albeit correlations are weak). Contrary to our expectations, Machiavellianism was not correlated significantly with both behavioral measures of impulsivity and both self-report measures (Hypothesis 3). The results obtained are consistent with prior work on the Dark Triad (Jones & Paulhus, 2011) but inconsistent with work on Machiavellianism (Crysel et al., 2013). The element of impulsivity is a key in distinguishing psychopathy and narcissism from Machiavellianism and influenced the associations between each measure method of impulsivity and “dark” traits. Psychopaths present lack of the ability to inhibit unacceptable behaviors and antisocial impulses (Jones & Paulhus, 2011). At a clinical level, impulsivity promotes criminal behavior (Hare & Neumann, 2008). These results also suggest that the relationship between behaviorally measured impulsivity and the Dark Triad may be driven by psychopathy, and may be stronger for temporal discounting than stop signal reaction time, despite that the two behavioral parameters were moderately correlated. Moreover, significant association between narcissism and behavioral measures of impulsive inhibition may be driven by the individuals with narcissists' disposition to providing rapid and speedy responses. In particular, narcissists thrive well in situations involving automatized social interactions (Vazire & Funder, 2006), the rapid responses in behavioral impulsivity tasks confirms the validity of the obtained results. By contrast, neither assessments of impulsivity play a role among Machiavellians. The lack of association indicates that individuals with higher scores on the Machiavellianism scale may have better self-control than people low on Machiavellianism scale. By taking the advantage over psychopaths and narcissists, their lower impulsivity allows people who rated high on the Machiavellianism scale to maintain tendencies toward exploitation and manipulation of others (Jones & Paulhus, 2011). With regard to sex differences, men scored higher on the Machiavellianism and Psychopathy scales. There is ample evidence suggesting that men score higher on all three of the Dark Triad traits than women do (e.g., Jonason, Li, Webster, & Schmitt, 2009; Jonason & Tost, 2010). From an adaptive perspective, men probably benefit more from social
M. Malesza, P. Ostaszewski / Personality and Individual Differences 88 (2016) 197–201
exploitation (Buss & Duntley, 2008), and therefore are more likely to obtain higher scores on personality traits that reflect social exploitation. Additionally, men performed more impulsively on the Delay-Discounting measure than women. This finding is also consistent with previous studies using the discounting assessment methods, in which men discounted more than women (e.g., Kirby & Marakovic, 1996). The conceptual reasons to predict that self-reported and behavioral impulsivity show a distinct pattern of associations (Hypothesis 4), is that both measure methods of impulsivity are almost uncorrelated (here only two weak correlation were observed). Our results confirm previous findings (Lane et al., 2003; Reynolds et al., 2004, 2006; but see also for contradictory results Richards et al., 1999) suggesting that self-report measures and behavioral measures assess different forms of impulsivity and different underlying processes. Observed differences may be due to the fact that behavioral methods measure more specific behavior (e.g., stop-reaction time), whereas self-report questionnaires assess more general impulsive behavior. Specifically, with self-report tasks, asking for reporting participants' behavioral tendencies in various contexts, may not always accurately reflect individuals'behavior. Performance on behavioral tasks, however measuring only one specific dimension, is less sensitive to biased self-perceptions (Reynolds et al., 2006). 4.1. Limitations Regarding the limitations of the present study, the sample diversity was small. Because the participant sample was limited to university students, the results may not be applicable to the general population. However, this could be improved by recruiting participants from different backgrounds. Another limitation is that the behavioral measure of impulsivity (i.e., Delay-Discounting task) was also self-reported. To address the issue of having to wait the specified amount of time before the outcome is delivered, future studies could assess the actual time needed to wait to gain the reward. However, an extensive literature suggests no differences in discounting between real and hypothetical rewards in discounting tasks (e.g., Madden, Begotka, Raiff, & Kastern, 2003). 4.2. Conclusion Investigation of the role of impulsivity in the Dark Triad composite requires a better understanding of the equivalence of different assessment methods. Our results hopefully help to address the concern that self-report measures of impulsivity might not reflect actual behavior. They do, and they do even more as they are clearly superior while linked to the “dark” personality traits. Thus, we maintain that self-reported impulsivity provides a more comprehensive assessment of the Dark Triad than purely behavioral measures do. Acknowledgments The first author was supported by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). References Barkley, R. A. (1997). Behavioral inhibition, sustained attention, and executive functions: constructing a unifying theory of ADHD. Psychological Bulletin, 121, 65–94. Barratt, E. S., & Patton, J. H. (1983). Impulsivity: cognitive, behavioral and psychophysiological correlates. In M. Zuckerman (Ed.), Biological bases of sensation seeking, impulsivity and anxiety (pp. 77–116). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Buss, D. M., & Duntley, J. D. (2008). Adaptations for exploitation. Group Dynamics, 12, 53–62. Christie, R., & Geis, F. (1970). Studies in Machiavellianism. New York, NY: Academic Press. Crysel, L. C., Crosier, B. S., & Webster, G. D. (2013). The dark triad and risk behavior. Personality and Individual Differences, 54, 35–40.
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Dark side of impulsivity — Associations between the Dark Triad, self-report and behavioral measures of impulsivity Marta Malesza a,⁎, Paweł Ostaszewski b a b
University of Warsaw, Poland University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Chodakowska 19/31, 03-815 Warsaw, Poland
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history: Received 5 January 2015 Received in revised form 7 September 2015 Accepted 11 September 2015 Available online 22 September 2015 Keywords: Dark Triad Impulsivity Self-report measures Behavioral measures
a b s t r a c t Associations between the Dark Triad (psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism) with two self-report personality measures (i.e., BIS-11 and I7) and two behavioral tasks (i.e., Stop-Signal task and Delay-Discounting task) of impulsivity in 298 healthy adult volunteers were examined. The strong correlations between psychopathy, narcissism, and self-report measures of impulsivity were reported. Moreover, the variables of the Dark Triad mentioned above have shown weak correlations with behavioral tasks of impulsivity. Contrary, Machiavellianism was unrelated to either type of impulsivity assessment. When testing the association between the self-report and behavioral measures of impulsivity, analysis revealed only two significant correlations. There was a positive correlation between Motor Impulsivity of the BIS-11 and stop-reaction time on the Stop-Signal task, and the Impulsivity scale from I7 was negatively related to the AUC value from Delay-Discounting task. Reliably, these results support other recent findings suggesting that self-report and behavioral tasks probably measure different constructs, perhaps unrelated components of impulsive behavior. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction Considering the possibility that individuals might have a dispositional tendency to show impulsive behavior bears considering the traits of the Dark Triad (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). The Dark Triad, comprising of psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism, represents a set of three distinct, but related subclinical maladaptive and socially aversive personality characteristics. Psychopathy is defined by high callousness, thrill-seeking, interpersonal antagonism and manipulation, and by low empathy, remorse, and anxiety (Hare & Neumann, 2008). Individuals with a high degree of Narcissism focus largely on themselves and are characterized by self-absorption, dominance, and feelings of entitlement (Emmons, 1987). Machiavellianism is characterized by self-interest and the tendency toward deception, manipulation and the exploitation of others (Christie & Geis, 1970). 1.1. Impulsivity The construct of “impulsivity” has been defined as an inability to inhibit inappropriate behaviors, to wait and to act with forethought (e.g., Barratt & Patton, 1983; Eysenck, Pearson, Easting, & Allsopp, 1985). Impulsivity encompasses a range of maladaptive characteristics that are often linked to constructs studied in the field of psychopathology, such ⁎ Corresponding author at: Faculty of Psychology, University of Warsaw, Stawki 5/7, 00-183 Warsaw, Poland. E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Malesza).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.09.016 0191-8869/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD; e.g., Barkley, 1997) and substance abuse (e.g., deWit, 2008). In order to assess behaviors that are considered impulsive, a variety of measurement methods have been developed. These methods can be categorized as (1) self-report questionnaires, that assess an individual's self-perception of their own behaviors across a variety of contexts, and (2) laboratory behavioral tasks, which assess specific behavioral processes (Reynolds, Ortengren, Richards, & de Wit, 2006; Reynolds, Richards, Horn, & Karraker, 2004). Moreover, previous research tried to identify different dimensions of impulsive behavior that has differed across two methods of impulsivity assessment — self-report and laboratory behavioral methods. For example, there has been considerable research to explore discrete categories of impulsivity using self-report procedures, which usually results in as few as three (e.g., impulsiveness, empathy, venturesomeness; Eysenck, Daum, Schugens, & Diehl, 1990), or as many as six different subfactors of impulsive behavior (e.g., motor impulsivity, attention, self-control, cognitive complexity, perseverance, cognitive instability; Barratt & Patton, 1983). On the other hand, research using laboratory behavioral measures of impulsivity identified two subfactors: “impulsive disinhibition” (in which individuals were expected to inhibit motor behaviors; measures like the Stop-Signal task; Logan, Schachar, & Tannock, 1997) and “impulsive decision-making” (measures that involved participants making decisions about delayed versus immediate outcomes, i.e., Delay-Discounting task; Reynolds et al., 2006). Finally, both self-report and laboratory behavioral measurement methods of impulsivity have been studied extensively in their own research context. However, some recent studies indicate that self-report
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and behavioral assessments are not, or are only weakly correlated (e.g., Lane, Cherek, Rhodes, Pietras, & Techeremissine, 2003; Reynolds et al., 2004, 2006). Consequently, these findings indicate that the tendency for impulsive behaviors assessed by laboratory behavioral procedures may not be the same as those detected by self-report assessments.
1.2. Dark Triad and impulsivity Two “dark” personality traits linked to impulsivity are narcissism (Raskin & Hall, 1981) and psychopathy (Jakobwitz & Egan, 2006). Given the differential pattern of associations with the self-reported impulsivity, Jones and Paulhus (2011) showed that narcissism was correlated with functional impulsivity whereas psychopathy was most closely associated with dysfunctional impulsivity. Crysel, Crosier, and Webster (2013) concluded that self-reported impulsivity moderately correlated with the Dark Triad Dirty Dozen composite and its three subscales of psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. On the other hand, the association between Machiavellianism and self-reported impulsivity was inconsistent, with one sample showing a weak positive correlation (Crysel et al., 2013) and the other showing no significant relation (Jones & Paulhus, 2011). The lack of associations indicates that, although Machiavellians have no better impulse control than non-Machiavellians, they certainly have the advantage over narcissists and psychopaths. Machiavellians are manipulators who possess (at least) a modicum of self-control. Their moderate impulse control allows Machiavellians to refrain from counterproductive behaviors despite their selfish intentions (Jonason & Tost, 2010; Jones & Paulhus, 2011). Furthermore, in case of behaviorally assessed impulsivity, the narcissism component of the Dark Triad was positively related to steeper delay discounting (Crysel et al., 2013). Delay (temporal) discounting is recognized as a possible mechanism of impulsive behavior (for a review, see Madden & Bickel, 2010). Discounting refers to decrease of the subjective value of money or another reward as a delay to its receipt increases. Specifically, if someone chooses a smaller sooner reward over a larger but more delayed reward, this behavior is termed impulsive, whereas if someone forgoes a smaller sooner reward to receive a larger later reward, this behavior is termed self-controlled (Reynolds et al., 2004). Thus, people with a high level of narcissism preferred less money immediately to more money later (Crysel et al., 2013). Also, a marginally significant positive correlation also appeared for psychopathy and temporal discounting. These results suggest that the relationship between delay discounting may be driven by narcissism and, to a lesser degree, by psychopathy. However, Machiavellianism was not significantly associated with steeper temporal discounting (Crysel et al., 2013). Despite the study linking the Dark Triad with steeper discounting rate of delayed outcomes, there is no systematic research linking the behavioral inhibition of impulsivity to the Dark Triad. One limitation of previous Dark Triad research on impulsivity is that typically, various measures of impulsivity have not been simultaneously administrated. Instead, most studies have relied on a single measure. No studies have explicitly combined self-report approaches with behaviorally-based approaches of impulsivity. Consequently, the relations among self-report and behavioral measures of impulsivity together with the Dark Triad concept are not well understood. This kind of focused approach does not allow for comparisons between different impulsivity tasks and the “dark” personality, and as a result, provides an incomplete view of impulsive characteristics. To date, the most comprehensive study on both self-reported and behavioral impulsivity and their associations with the Dark Triad (Crysel et al., 2013) used only a brief measure of the Dark Triad (i.e., Dirty Dozen scale; Jonason & Webster, 2010). Unfortunately, the scale appears to be too short, containing only four items per each construct measured by the Dark Triad. As a result, the instrument has been criticized in several recent reports (Lee et al., 2013; Miller et al., 2012).
1.3. Hypothesis Consistent with the findings of Crysel et al. (2013), we expected to find significant strong positive associations between the self-reported impulsivity and the Dark Triad traits of narcissism and psychopathy (Hypothesis 1), and a weaker positive correlation between behavioral impulsivity and narcissism and psychopathy (Hypothesis 2). Whereas, Machiavellianism may be slightly correlated with self-reported measures of impulsivity (Hypothesis 3). There are also conceptual reasons to subdivide into separate components of impulsivity self-report and behavioral measure methods that are thought to represent different underlying processes. Several other previous studies demonstrated that self-report measures of the trait of impulsivity were not related to performance on the behavioral tasks (e.g., Lane et al., 2003; Reynolds et al., 2004, 2006). Consequently, we predicted that the association between impulsivity measured by self-report and behavioral tasks will be weakly correlated or not correlated significantly (Hypothesis 4).
2. Methodology The study was designed and conducted using a within-subjects design, with each participant exposed to all of the conditions. Research participation involved the completion of the three Dark Triad inventories, two personality measures of impulsivity (Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 and I7), and two behavioral tasks of impulsivity containing a measure of behavioral inhibition (Stop-Signal task) and a delay-ofreward task (see below). The order of the tasks was counterbalanced across individuals. Data were collected in an online study administered via a tool for online surveys: www.soscisurvey.de. We ran the experiment using WebExp (Keller, 1999), a software package for running psychological experiments online. WebExp is implemented in Java and uses a client–server architecture which gives the experimenter maximal control over stimulus presentation and collection of responses. A strong point is WebExp's timing component, which includes both the timing of the presentation of stimulus, and the measurement of response times. The web-based data collected previously in several experiments provided a close match with the data collected under controlled laboratory conditions (Keller, Gunasekharan, Mayo, & Corley, 2009).
2.1. Participants and procedure 298 German university students participated in the experiment (138 men and 160 women, ranging in age from 18 to 29 years, M = 21.8, SD = 1.52). Individuals were recruited from a volunteer database. Inclusion criteria included being over 18-years-old, and having no history of psychological illness. All participants provided informed consent after the nature of the study had been explained to them.
2.2. Materials 2.2.1. Dark Triad measures Psychopathy was assessed with a 30-item version of the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale-III (Williams, Nathanson, & Paulhus, 2003; authors' own translation to German). Answers were given on a five-point Likert-type scale (from 0 = not at all like me to 4 = totally like me; Cronbach's α = .93). Narcissism was measured with the 17-item Narcissistic Personality Inventory (German version by von Collani, 2008) with a five-point Likert-type scale (from 0 = not at all like me to 4 = totally like me; Cronbach's α = .85). Machiavellianism was assessed with an 18-item scale (German version by Henning & Six, 2008). Answer format was a six-point Likert-type scale (from 0 = not at all like me to 5 = totally like me; Cronbach's α = .76).
M. Malesza, P. Ostaszewski / Personality and Individual Differences 88 (2016) 197–201
2.2.2. Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 The BIS-11 is a widely used personality test of impulsivity (German version by Hartmann, Rief, & Hilbert, 2011). It contains 30 statements (with an answer format on a four-point Likert-type scale, from 1 = rarely/never to 4 = almost always/always), which constitute six factors: self-control (6 items; Cronbach's α = .81), attention impulsivity (5 items; Cronbach's α = .80), motor impulsivity (7 items; Cronbach's α = .88), cognitive instability (3 items; Cronbach's α = .86), cognitive complexity (5 items; Cronbach's α = .82), and perseverance (4 items; Cronbach's α = .73). 2.2.3. I7 The I7 was developed to measure impulsivity within the framework of Eysenck's conception of impulsivity (German version by Eysenck et al., 1990). It consists of 54 items with a yes/no answer format, divided into three scales: impulsiveness (19 items Cronbach's α = .83), empathy (19 items; Cronbach's α = .85), and venturesomeness (16 items; Cronbach's α = .78).
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Table 1 Descriptive statistics and sex differences for all variables. Men N = 130
Psychopathy Narcissism Machiavellianism BIS-11: Attention BIS-11: Motor impulsivity BIS-11: Self-control BIS-11: Perseverance BIS-11: Cognitive complexity BIS-11: Cognitive instability I7: Impulsivity I7: Venturesome I7: Empathy Delay-Discounting task (AUC) Stop task (milliseconds) Social desirability
Women N = 168
F (1, 296)
M
(SD)
M
(SD)
10.35 8.19 24.13 11.08 18.57 11.63 7.28 13.75 4.13 7.85 7.95 10.50 .387 990 4.45
1.61 2.20 7.50 2.31 6.45 4.60 2.93 5.35 1.16 3.71 2.93 4.16 .130 365 .58
7.10 7.93 18.21 12.90 16.23 12.77 6.59 13.25 4.94 5.32 7.21 12.39 .563 870 5.07
2.05 2.54 9.35 3.08 4.60 3.90 2.24 5.62 2.02 3.30 2.84 3.83 .169 290 .83
5.13⁎ .484 4.49⁎ −1.11 1.48 −2.03 29.53 27.74 27.50 −3.94 −3.81 1.08⁎ 1.69⁎ −1.39 2.09
⁎ p b .05.
2.2.4. Delay-Discounting task Discounting was assessed at five delay intervals (1, 7, 30, 180, and 365 days later; procedure adapted from Richards, Zhang, Mitchell, & de Wit, 1999). On each delay task trial, participants chose between € 200 available after a delay (i.e., 1, 7, 30, 180, or 365 days) and a smaller amount of money available immediately (i.e., ‘Would you rather have € 60 now or € 200 in 30 days?’). This computerized task used an adjusting amount procedure (adjusting the immediate amount in increments or decrements of ±€ 20) to derive indifference points between the delayed standard and immediate adjusting options for each of the five delays assessed. The procedure was repeated until an indifference value was obtained for each delay condition. Each indifference value was determined for each participant by taking the smallest amount of money where the participant switched preference from immediate instead of the delayed standard amount (€ 200) at the specific delay (see Richards et al., 1999). An area-under-the-curve (AUC) method was used to characterize the delay discounting rate (Myerson, Green, & Warusawitharana, 2001). Obtained AUC value represents a proportion on a range between 0.0 and 1.0 where larger AUC values are indicative of slower or no discounting and lower AUC values mean greater levels of discounting. 2.2.5. Stop-Signal task The Stop-Signal Time was derived from the task of Logan et al. (1997). The procedure has been used extensively in order to test abilities of inhibition. Participants were instructed to respond to a visual “go” signal as quickly as possible (75% of the trials), but to withhold this response when an auditory “stop” signal is presented (25% of the trials). The stop signal was presented at varying delays (in milliseconds) following by an auditory stop signal, and subjects were instructed to withhold their responses. The delay to the stop signal was varied systematically across trials according to the participant's performance until a delay was found at which the individuals inhibited their responses on approximately 50% of trials. This procedure provides an estimate of the time taken to stop a response, the stop reaction time (SRT). Longer stop reaction times (SRTs) are taken to indicate poor behavioral inhibition and more impulsive responding. 2.2.6. Social desirability Finally, social desirability was considered as a control variable and measured with the 17-item Social Desirability Scale (German version by Stöber, 1999) using a true-false answer format (Cronbach's α = .90). 3. Results Descriptive statistics for all variables and sex differences are reported in Table 1.
3.1. Relations among dark personality variables Narcissism and Machiavellianism were least related, with psychopathy correlating with both Machiavellianism and narcissism. We conducted a Principal Component Analysis on all three Dark Triad measures. All three loaded well (N.70; with highest loading for psychopathy and lowest loading for narcissism) on a single factor that accounted for 32.6% of the variance (Eigen N 1.25). However, it is not recommended that a composite measure of the Dark Triad be created for analysis (e.g., Furnham, Richards, & Paulhus, 2013). Although positively correlated, the Dark Triad traits are quite distinct and reflect unique tendencies. Finally, social desirability level was not significantly associated with the Dark Triad variables (all p N .05). This finding suggests that selves do not distort responses when rating themselves on potentially ego-involving traits (e.g., Stöber, 1999). 3.2. Main effects for gender Performing t-tests of ANOVA least squares means for gender differences on the Dark Triad scales, self-reported and behavioral impulsivity measures (including a Bonferroni correction for a multiple comparisons), showed that men scored higher on the Machiavellianism and Psychopathy scales. Additionally, men showed smaller AUC (discounted delay rewards more steeply) in the Delay-Discounting measure (i.e., performed more impulsively than women). Women scored slightly higher than men did on the Empathy scale of the I7. On all other variables men and women scored similarly. 3.3. Associations between impulsivity and the Dark Triad Table 2 shows correlations between the Dark Triad traits, self-report and behavioral measures of impulsivity. As predicted, the Dark Triad two subscales of psychopathy and narcissism were each positively correlated with most subscales of the BIS-11 (Machiavellianism being the exception). The strongest relation was found between the psychopathy and Motor Impulsivity subscale, whereas the weakest correlation was observed between the Narcissism and Attention scale. Moreover, as expected, the Impulsivity subscale of the I7 was positively correlated with the Dark Triad components, psychopathy and narcissism. The Empathy subscale was negatively related to the Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Behavioral impulsivity correlates less consistently with the Dark Triad traits, compared with the self-reported impulsivity. The most prominently associated “dark” personality factor appears to be
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Table 2 Correlation matrix (N = 298) comparing all measures of Dark Triad and impulsivity.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
Dark Triad measures
Self-report impulsivity measures
1
2
3
4
5
–
.446⁎⁎
.316⁎⁎ .236⁎⁎
.360⁎⁎ .179⁎
.563⁎⁎ .297⁎⁎
–
−.035 –
.001 .286⁎⁎ –
–
Behavioral impulsivity measures
6
7
8
9
10
.049 .190⁎ .015 .201⁎⁎ .119⁎
.258⁎⁎ .206⁎⁎
.187⁎ .522⁎⁎ .222⁎⁎ .116⁎ .410⁎⁎ .267⁎⁎ .274⁎⁎
.318⁎⁎ .313⁎⁎ .254⁎⁎
.243⁎⁎ .194⁎
–
.002 .538⁎⁎ .114⁎ .491⁎⁎ –
–
.039 .207⁎⁎ .151⁎ .016 .181⁎ –
.025 .355⁎⁎ .013 .046 .421⁎⁎ .173⁎ −.098 –
11
12
13
14
−.019 .182⁎ .014 .240⁎⁎ .141⁎ .176⁎ .377⁎⁎ .302⁎⁎ .145⁎ .262⁎⁎
−.236⁎⁎
−.184⁎
.037 −.249⁎⁎ .264⁎⁎ .278⁎⁎
.058 −.090 .010 .089 −.080 −.044 .023 .045 −.140⁎ .009 .033 –
.162⁎ .121⁎ −.064 .073 .174⁎
–
.016 .382⁎⁎ −.009 .393⁎⁎ .242⁎⁎ .187⁎ –
−.091 −.058 −.060 .102 −.037 −.042 .012 −.346⁎⁎ –
1. Psychopathy; 2. Narcissism; 3. Machiavellianism; 4. BIS-11: Attention; 5. BIS-11: Motor impulsivity; 6. BIS-11: Self-control; 7. BIS-11: Cognitive complexity; 8. BIS-11: Perseverance; 9. BIS-11: Cognitive instability; 10. I7: Impulsivity; 11. I7: Venturesome; 12. I7: Empathy; 13: Delay-Discounting task; 14: Stop Task. ⁎ p b .05. ⁎⁎ p b .01.
psychopathy, which is negatively (although weakly) associated with the behavioral impulsive decision-making measured by the DelayDiscounting task (i.e., individuals high in psychopathy preferred smaller sum of money immediately instead of bigger outcome later), and with stop-signal reaction time (individuals high in psychopathy present poorer behavioral inhibition). Whereas, narcissism was weakly significantly correlated with the stop reaction time (people high in narcissism scored longer stop reaction time values and, consequently, presented more impulsive responding). 3.4. Self-report and laboratory behavioral measures of impulsivity Most of the scales of each of the self-report measures of impulsivity positively correlated with other self-report measure (i.e., BIS-11 and I7; the stronger correlation between Cognitive Complex from BIS-11 and Impulsivity form I7), and between subscales of the same instruments (e.g., BIS-11). Moreover, both behavioral impulsivity measures (i.e., Delay-Discounting task and Stop-Signal task) were significantly associated (participants' smaller AUC value delay discounting correlated with stronger impulsive responding). By contrast, analysis conducted between self-report and behavioral measurement methods of impulsivity revealed only two significant correlations. There was a positive correlation between Motor Impulsivity of the BIS-11 and stop-reaction time on the Stop-Signal measure (participants with longer stop-signals time on the Stop-Signal task presented higher motor impulsivity), and a correlation between Impulsivity scale from I7 was negatively related to the AUC value from Delay-Discounting task (individuals higher on Impulsivity preferred immediate outcomes instead of bigger delayed ones in the Delay-Discounting task). 4. Discussion The aim of the present research was to examine (a) the relationship among the Dark Triad traits and impulsivity-related traits and behaviors and (b) to test the associations between self-report and behavioral measures of impulsivity. Based on the previous findings, we hypothesized that correlations among the Dark Triad traits and various personality tasks of impulsivity would be moderate (Crysel et al., 2013; Jones & Paulhus, 2011), but that “dark” personality measures would be only slightly correlated with the behavioral measures of impulsivity (Crysel et al., 2013). We expected that self-report and behavioral measures of impulsivity should be slightly related or completely uncorrelated and, consequently, assess different processes (Reynolds et al., 2004, 2006).
Both self-report and behavioral-task studies support the idea that impulsivity is linked to the Dark Triad. What is most evident from the correlation analyses is that psychopathy and narcissism are each positively and significantly (although weakly in some cases) related to both two self-reported impulsivity measures (Hypothesis 1). That is, higher scores psychopathy and narcissism scales relate with higher self-reported impulsivity traits. Additionally, psychopathy was correlated with both behavioral impulsivity measures, whereas narcissism was associated with the Stop-Signal task, but not correlated with behavioral Delay-Discounting measure (Hypothesis 2; albeit correlations are weak). Contrary to our expectations, Machiavellianism was not correlated significantly with both behavioral measures of impulsivity and both self-report measures (Hypothesis 3). The results obtained are consistent with prior work on the Dark Triad (Jones & Paulhus, 2011) but inconsistent with work on Machiavellianism (Crysel et al., 2013). The element of impulsivity is a key in distinguishing psychopathy and narcissism from Machiavellianism and influenced the associations between each measure method of impulsivity and “dark” traits. Psychopaths present lack of the ability to inhibit unacceptable behaviors and antisocial impulses (Jones & Paulhus, 2011). At a clinical level, impulsivity promotes criminal behavior (Hare & Neumann, 2008). These results also suggest that the relationship between behaviorally measured impulsivity and the Dark Triad may be driven by psychopathy, and may be stronger for temporal discounting than stop signal reaction time, despite that the two behavioral parameters were moderately correlated. Moreover, significant association between narcissism and behavioral measures of impulsive inhibition may be driven by the individuals with narcissists' disposition to providing rapid and speedy responses. In particular, narcissists thrive well in situations involving automatized social interactions (Vazire & Funder, 2006), the rapid responses in behavioral impulsivity tasks confirms the validity of the obtained results. By contrast, neither assessments of impulsivity play a role among Machiavellians. The lack of association indicates that individuals with higher scores on the Machiavellianism scale may have better self-control than people low on Machiavellianism scale. By taking the advantage over psychopaths and narcissists, their lower impulsivity allows people who rated high on the Machiavellianism scale to maintain tendencies toward exploitation and manipulation of others (Jones & Paulhus, 2011). With regard to sex differences, men scored higher on the Machiavellianism and Psychopathy scales. There is ample evidence suggesting that men score higher on all three of the Dark Triad traits than women do (e.g., Jonason, Li, Webster, & Schmitt, 2009; Jonason & Tost, 2010). From an adaptive perspective, men probably benefit more from social
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exploitation (Buss & Duntley, 2008), and therefore are more likely to obtain higher scores on personality traits that reflect social exploitation. Additionally, men performed more impulsively on the Delay-Discounting measure than women. This finding is also consistent with previous studies using the discounting assessment methods, in which men discounted more than women (e.g., Kirby & Marakovic, 1996). The conceptual reasons to predict that self-reported and behavioral impulsivity show a distinct pattern of associations (Hypothesis 4), is that both measure methods of impulsivity are almost uncorrelated (here only two weak correlation were observed). Our results confirm previous findings (Lane et al., 2003; Reynolds et al., 2004, 2006; but see also for contradictory results Richards et al., 1999) suggesting that self-report measures and behavioral measures assess different forms of impulsivity and different underlying processes. Observed differences may be due to the fact that behavioral methods measure more specific behavior (e.g., stop-reaction time), whereas self-report questionnaires assess more general impulsive behavior. Specifically, with self-report tasks, asking for reporting participants' behavioral tendencies in various contexts, may not always accurately reflect individuals'behavior. Performance on behavioral tasks, however measuring only one specific dimension, is less sensitive to biased self-perceptions (Reynolds et al., 2006). 4.1. Limitations Regarding the limitations of the present study, the sample diversity was small. Because the participant sample was limited to university students, the results may not be applicable to the general population. However, this could be improved by recruiting participants from different backgrounds. Another limitation is that the behavioral measure of impulsivity (i.e., Delay-Discounting task) was also self-reported. To address the issue of having to wait the specified amount of time before the outcome is delivered, future studies could assess the actual time needed to wait to gain the reward. However, an extensive literature suggests no differences in discounting between real and hypothetical rewards in discounting tasks (e.g., Madden, Begotka, Raiff, & Kastern, 2003). 4.2. Conclusion Investigation of the role of impulsivity in the Dark Triad composite requires a better understanding of the equivalence of different assessment methods. Our results hopefully help to address the concern that self-report measures of impulsivity might not reflect actual behavior. They do, and they do even more as they are clearly superior while linked to the “dark” personality traits. Thus, we maintain that self-reported impulsivity provides a more comprehensive assessment of the Dark Triad than purely behavioral measures do. Acknowledgments The first author was supported by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). References Barkley, R. A. (1997). Behavioral inhibition, sustained attention, and executive functions: constructing a unifying theory of ADHD. Psychological Bulletin, 121, 65–94. Barratt, E. S., & Patton, J. H. (1983). Impulsivity: cognitive, behavioral and psychophysiological correlates. In M. Zuckerman (Ed.), Biological bases of sensation seeking, impulsivity and anxiety (pp. 77–116). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Buss, D. M., & Duntley, J. D. (2008). Adaptations for exploitation. Group Dynamics, 12, 53–62. Christie, R., & Geis, F. (1970). Studies in Machiavellianism. New York, NY: Academic Press. Crysel, L. C., Crosier, B. S., & Webster, G. D. (2013). The dark triad and risk behavior. Personality and Individual Differences, 54, 35–40.
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