Friends of the Forensic Science Club, this week we present the paper “The emotional déficits associated with the Dark Triad traits: Cognitive empathy, affective empathy and alexithymia” by Jonason, P. K. and Krause, L. (2013), in which authors carry out an investigation about what are the emotional deficits associated with the famous Dark Triad.

Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy have been repeatedly identified in the literature for years as aversive personality traits. Such is their negative power that they form the famous Dark Triad, which attracts us so much because of its mysterious and evil history. Possibly, because the Dark Triad has been associated multiple times with murderer’s personality.

Narcissism is characterized by superiority and dominance; machiavellianism, is related to manipulation and social charm; finally, psychopathy is related to insensitive social attitudes or impulsiveness.

For a few years now, attention has been paid to the idea that emotional deficiencies such as lack of empathy may be factors underlying these personality traits.

But not only the lack of empathy has been related to the Dark Triad: also the existence of alexithymia. That is, the inability to describe and understand one’s own emotions.

Although these two emotional deficits may be related, they have not been studied simultaneously until this investigation.

How could they relate? Authors propose the idea that the inability to identify or understand one’s own emotions (alexithymia) may be linked to the inability to identify or understand the feelings of others.

That is, the ability to put oneself in someone else’s shoes (empathy) can be supported by the ability to first be aware of one’s own feelings. And if one of these two does not work as it should be, then it may affect the other.

Evolutionary psychologists argue that traits and dispositions such as the Dark Triad or limited empathy could be positive for people’s adaptation as long as they offer them greater access to resources.

They could provide a competitive advantage by facilitating behaviors associated with goal achievement that require exploitation of others. How? For example, through contempt for one’s own feelings or for other’s feelings.

The same could also happen with alexithymia. This perspective suggests that it may be adaptive in the sense that it could facilitate the exploitative social strategy that is often linked to the Dark Triad.

To study the emotional deficits of the Dark Triad and to corroborate, or not, the previous literature, authors carried out a study with 320 volunteers.

They were asked to rate a few sentences based on whether or not they agreed with them, on a scale of 1 to 5. These sentences would be used to evaluate their narcissism, psychopathy, and machiavellianism.

Their levels of alexithymia and empathy were also evaluated with tests specially developed for this by specialists in the area.

The results were interesting, and in line with what the authors hypothesized from the beginning.

It appears that having low levels of empathy and a limited ability or motivation to communicate one’s emotions facilitates the antagonistic social strategy that appears in the Dark Triad traits.

In fact, spending too much time worried with or thinking about one’s own feelings, or other’s feelings, would be an obstacle for someone pursuing a typical Dark Triad life strategy. They would therefore be more focused on getting what they want from the external world than examining their internal world.

One of the limitations that the authors point out in this study is that there was a great imbalance in the number of men and women. They consider that future research should try to match the number and investigate in depth if there are differences between them.

They comment that, in conclusion, low empathy and high alexithymia can be evolutionarily advantageous for those who possess the Dark Triad traits and intend to live life following them (they are also refer to this as a “quick life strategy”).

Considering these traits as evolutionarily positive, a “depathologization” of these would be achieved, so that they would not require treatment, but possibly only a reconduction.

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