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Elite Players or Psychopaths? The Relationship between High-Performing Athletes and the Dark Triad of Personality: A Literature Review
Abstract
Successful businesspeople and politicians seem to have a high tendency in the Dark Triad of personality. Since achieved individuals often share similar personality traits while striving in a similar environment (prospering at others' expense), high-performing athletes are most likely to have similar characteristics. Through the examination on kinds of literature that are relative to the topic of the relationship between high-performing athletes and the Dark Triad of personality, homogeneous results were found across studies: the better the performance an athlete has, the more he/she would score in both overall and subsets of the Dark Triad scale. Potential drawbacks of such phenomena, such as doping and cheating, were also presented by literature, which should be paid attention to in future research.
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Psychopathic traits are associated with negative outcomes; however, they have also been associated with adaptive outcomes (e.g., corporate success, etc.). We tested the Moderated-Expression Model of psychopathy in a sample of community adults (N = 315; 50.8% female; 22-65 years) utilizing a battery of self-report measures (Self-Report Psychopathy Scale; Triarchic Psychopathy Measure; Conger & Kanungo Scale of Charismatic Leadership; General Charisma Inventory; Evading Detection/Punishment; and Occupational Success). The effect of psychopathic traits on evading detection and punishment (not occupational success) was moderated by leadership (and to a lesser extent, general) charisma, net of the effects of pathological narcissism and several other covariates. These results support the Moderated-Expression Model and warrant further research on the associations among psychopathy, charisma, and success.
Pathological narcissism is a term often applied to former President Donald Trump, but it has been less examined as a potential predictor of voting for him. Trump projects a grandiose and omnipotent self-image during press conferences and rallies, and his followers at these events often respond with both effusive admiration and an inflated sense of their own self-regard, all of which are aspects of narcissism. However, while Trump’s personal narcissism has been well documented, there is little research on the narcissism of his supporters. In this study we conducted an exploratory analysis examining the hierarchical structure of pathological narcissism and which aspects of narcissism within that structure were associated with intended voting for Trump in the 2020 U.S. presidential election in a sample of U.S. residents collected online (N = 495) using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Results indicated that an eight-echelon hierarchy best fit the data. Within this hierarchy, antagonistic and indifferent aspects of narcissism within the fifth echelon best predicted intended voting for Trump over and above relevant demographic variables. These results have implications for the study of narcissism and, especially given the results of the 2020 election, the degree to which one can make use of narcissistic aspects of personality in political contests.
Grandiose narcissism may be debilitative to athlete training because the opportunity for self-enhancement that motivates narcissists to strive is normally absent in training environments. However, this view ignores the divergent influences of the self-inflated (reflecting over-confidence) and dominant (reflecting willingness for dominance) facets of grandiose narcissism. We expected that self-inflated narcissism would undermine athlete training, but only when dominant narcissism was low. This is because dominant narcissism may serve as the catalyst that drives those with self-inflated narcissism to train well. We further considered goal-setting as a practical means of alleviating the negative influence of self-inflated narcissism in training. Goal-setting provides athletes with an exciting vision of the future and thus can be an important self-enhancement strategy to engage narcissistic athletes in training. In the present study, 321 athletes completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI-40) and the goal-setting subscale in the Test of Performance Strategies-3 (TOPS-3). Coaches of these athletes assessed training behaviors using the Quality of Training Inventory (QTI). Self-inflated narcissism predicted higher levels of (coach-rated) distractibility and poorer quality of preparation only when both dominant narcissism and goal-setting were low (and not when either was high). The findings suggest that dominant narcissism and goal-setting protect against the adverse influences of self-inflated narcissism on athlete training. The work underscores the importance of considering grandiose narcissism as a multidimensional construct and supports goal-setting as a useful self-enhancement strategy.
The Dark Triad traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) are prevalent in athletes. However, currently, we do not know whether the Dark Triad confers any competitive advantages in sport. To address this issue, the present study had two aims. First, to examine whether the Dark Triad predicted task performance in a basketball free throw task. Second, to examine whether competitive orientations explained (i.e., mediated) this relationship. A sample of 189 athletes (mean age = 19.11 years) completed measures of the Dark Triad, competitive orientations, and task performance (basketball free throw task). Regression analyses indicated that the Dark Triad predicted better task performance. In addition, mediation analyses indicated that the Dark Triad-performance relationship was explained by both hypercompetitive and self-developmental competitive orientations. The present study provides the first evidence that the Dark Triad may lead to better task performance in sport, and that this effect may be driven by athletes' competitive orientations.
Research on the dark triad traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy) is increasingly focusing on the functional or dysfunctional influences of personality traits on cognitive, behavioural and emotional responses. Thus, studies in sport contexts have shown that athletes who participate in competitive sports have higher scores in the dark triad than those who do not. The objectives of this cross-sectional study were to evaluate the linear and predictive relationships between dark traits and competitiveness (p < .05), as well as to identify any differences based on sports orientation (professionals vs. amateurs). Scales SD3 (dark personality) and C-10 (competitiveness) were applied to a sample of Spanish athletes (N = 806). The results show that competitiveness is strongly related to the traits of the dark personality triad. Narcissism is related to both the desire to win and the fear of losing, while Machiavellian tendencies are high when athletes feel like losers. Finally, psychopathic tendencies are related to feelings of inferiority and fear of failure. In conclusion, the results suggest that dark personality traits are related not only to the individuality of the athletes, but also to the self-perception of both their psychological response and the competitiveness of their sporting environment.
We examined the relationships between the Dark Triad personality traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy), attitudes towards doping, and cheating behavior among athletes. One-hundred and sixty-four athletes completed a questionnaire that assessed the Dark Triad and their attitudes towards doping. Following this, athletes completed a matrix solving task within a specific time limit. Participants were told they would receive a financial reward for the total number matrices they could solve, but only 13 of the 20 matrices were solvable. This provided the incentive and an opportunity for the athletes to cheat. All three Dark Triad personality traits correlated positively with attitudes towards doping and cheating behavior. In regression analyses, psychopathy emerged as a significant positive predictor of attitudes towards doping, and narcissism emerged as a significant positive predictor of cheating behavior. Attitudes towards doping correlated positively with cheating behavior. The Dark Triad appears to be important in relation to both attitudes towards doping and cheating behavior among athletes. In addition, our findings illustrate that favorable attitudes towards doping were linked with actual cheating among athletes. National Anti-Doping Organizations, sports federations, and coaches could assess athletes’ Dark Triad scores and attitudes towards doping in order to identify who may be more likely to cheat.
Over 25 years ago Ericsson et al. (1993) published the results of their search for the most effective forms of training in music, a domain where knowledge of effective training has been accumulated over centuries. At music academies master teachers provide students individualized instruction and help them identify goals and methods for their practice sessions between meetings – this form of solitary practice was named deliberate practice, and its accumulated duration during development was found to distinguish groups with differing levels of attained music performance. In an influential meta-analysis Macnamara et al. (2014) identified studies that had collected estimates of practice accumulated during development and attained performance and reported that individual differences in deliberate practice accounted for only 14% of variance in performance. Their definition of “deliberate practice” differs significantly from the original definition of deliberate practice and will henceforth be referred to as structured practice. We explicate three criteria for reproducible performance and purposeful/deliberate practice and exclude all effect sizes considered by Macnamara et al. (2014) that were based on data not meeting these criteria. A reanalysis of the remaining effects estimated that accumulated duration of practice explained considerably more variance in performance (29 and 61% after attenuation correction). We also address the argument that the limited amount of variance explained by the duration of practice necessarily implies an important role of genetic factors, and we report that genetic effects have so far accounted for remarkably small amounts of variance – with exception of genetic influences of height and body size. The paper concludes with recommendations for how future research on purposeful and deliberate practice can go beyond recording only the duration of practice to measuring the quality of practice involving concentration, analysis, and problem solving to identify conditions for the most effective forms of training.
The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationships between the personality traits of the Dark Triad, the moral judgment level, and the students’ disciplinary choice. It was hypothesized that students who major in higher business and management education show higher levels of the Dark Triad and lower levels of moral judgment competence (self-selection hypothesis). According to the indoctrination hypothesis it was assumed that the differences between business and management students and other students would be higher in advanced semesters. The findings suggest that business and management students show higher levels of the Dark Triad but not of moral judgment competence. However, there was no evidence found for a higher difference in advanced students.
In contrast to socially desirable behaviors, recent work has implied that effective elite team leadership also relies on socially undesirable behaviors. Accordingly, this study aimed to further explore the authenticity of dark side leadership behaviors, what they look like, and how they may be best used. Via interviews with 15 leaders, behaviors associated with Machiavellianism/mischievousness, skepticism, social dominance, and performance-focused ruthlessness were found. Moreover, these behaviors were enabled by leaders’ sociopolitical awareness and engineering as well as their adaptive expertise. Findings promote practitioner sensitivity to dark side leadership and, for leader effectiveness, sociopolitical and temporal features of its application.
Past empirical studies relating Narcissism to leadership have offered mixed results. The present study integrates prior research findings via meta-analysis to make four contributions to theory on Narcissism and leadership, by: (a) distinguishing between leadership emergence and leadership effectiveness, to reveal that Narcissism displays a positive relationship with leadership emergence, but no relationship with leadership effectiveness, (b) showing Narcissism's positive effect on leadership emergence can be explained by leader Extraversion, (c) demonstrating that whereas observer-reported leadership effectiveness ratings (e.g., supervisor-report, subordinate-report, and peer-report) are not related to Narcissism, self-reported leadership effectiveness ratings are positively related to Narcissism, and (d) illustrating that the nil linear relationship between Narcissism and leadership effectiveness masks an underlying curvilinear trend, advancing the idea that there exists an optimal, midrange level of leader Narcissism. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Three socially aversive traits—Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy—have been studied as an overlapping constellation known as the Dark Triad. Here, we develop and validate the Short Dark Triad (SD3), a brief proxy measure. Four studies (total N = 1,063) examined the structure, reliability, and validity of the subscales in both community and student samples. In Studies 1 and 2, structural analyses yielded three factors with the final 27 items loading appropriately on their respective factors. Study 3 confirmed that the resulting SD3 subscales map well onto the longer standard measures. Study 4 validated the SD3 subscales against informant ratings. Together, these studies indicate that the SD3 provides efficient, reliable, and valid measures of the Dark Triad of personalities.
Recent studies suggest that psychopathy may be associated with dysfunction in the neural circuitry supporting both threat- and reward-related processes. However, these studies have involved small samples and often focused on extreme groups. Thus, it is unclear to what extent current findings may generalize to psychopathic traits in the general population. Furthermore, no studies have systematically and simultaneously assessed associations between distinct psychopathy facets and both threat- and reward-related brain function in the same sample of participants. Here, we examined the relationship between threat-related amygdala reactivity and reward-related ventral striatum (VS) reactivity and variation in four facets of self-reported psychopathy in a sample of 200 young adults. Path models indicated that amygdala reactivity to fearful facial expressions is negatively associated with the interpersonal facet of psychopathy, whereas amygdala reactivity to angry facial expressions is positively associated with the lifestyle facet. Furthermore, these models revealed that differential VS reactivity to positive versus negative feedback is negatively associated with the lifestyle facet. There was suggestive evidence for gender-specific patterns of association between brain function and psychopathy facets. Our findings are the first to document differential associations between both threat- and reward-related neural processes and distinct facets of psychopathy and thus provide a more comprehensive picture of the pattern of neural vulnerabilities that may predispose to maladaptive outcomes associated with psychopathy.
Praise for ability is commonly considered to have beneficial effects on motivation. Contrary to this popular belief, six studies demonstrated that praise for intelligence had more negative consequences for students' achievement motivation than praise for effort. Fifth graders praised for intelligence were found to care more about performance goals relative to learning goals than children praised for effort. After failure, they also displayed less task persistence, less task enjoyment, more low-ability attributions, and worse task performance than children praised for effort. Finally, children praised for intelligence described it as a fixed trait more than children praised for hard work, who believed it to be subject to improvement. These findings have important implications for how achievement is best encouraged, as well as for more theoretical issues, such as the potential cost of performance goals and the socialization of contingent self-worth.
We tested the scope of the congruency model of political preference by examining how people high in various dark personalities evaluate political candidates with dark characteristics. In Study 1, participants high in dark personalities reported enhanced self-possession of dark characteristics and, in general, more tolerance of those characteristics in politicians. In Study 2, although participants viewed a wholesome (vs. dark) politician as more similar to the self and likeable, this effect diminished as participants indicated greater possession of dark personalities. Exploratory analyses involving other perceiver traits (self-esteem, political conservatism/liberalism) yielded additional insights about tolerance for dark politicians. Findings contribute to understanding how people high in dark personalities evaluate others and offer a novel perspective on similarity-liking effects in candidate evaluation.
Mental toughness (MT) provides additional psychological resources important for achievement and health outcomes in sport. Previous research has highlighted complex relationships between the Dark Triad (DT; sub-clinical narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) and MT, but with little focus on health-related behaviours -i.e., physical activity (PA). The aim of this study was twofold: to assess the relationship between these variables and determine any differences as a function of athlete expertise; and, to determine whether MT mediated the DT-PA relationship, and whether this relationship differed across athlete expertise. In total, 762 participants with varying levels of sports participation experience-elite (n = 222), amateur (n = 338), and non-athletes (n = 202)-completed questionnaires assessing DT, MT, and PA. Results indicated that elite athletes scored higher on all variables compared with amateur athletes who in turn scored higher than non-athletes. Moreover, positive relationships were found between narcissism and MT. Structural equation modelling indicated MT fully mediated the relationship between DT and PA, and this effect was more evident for elites and amateurs than non-athletes.
The use of performance enhancing drugs, also known as doping, can represent a serious threat to an athlete's psychological and physical health and contravenes the spirit of sport. Scholars identified attitudes towards doping as a crucial factor that indirectly influences doping behaviors. Further, prominent theoretical frameworks that are designed to explain why athletes dope state that personality traits shape doping attitudes. To date, however, scholars are yet to examine the relationship between attitudes towards doping and personality traits such as the Dark Triad. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between the Dark Triad and doping attitudes amongst a sample of competitive athletes. Two hundred and eighty-five athletes completed a measure of the Dark Triad and attitudes towards doping. Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism all correlated positively with attitudes towards doping. Machiavellianism and psychopathy explained 29% of the variance in attitudes towards doping, whereas narcissism did not independently contribute to the variance in doping attitudes. These results reveal that athletes who score highly on the Dark Triad may be more likely to dope and therefore might need targeted anti-doping education and long-term monitoring to reduce their risk of taking banned substances.
Background:
The Dark Triad (DT) describes a set of three closely related personality traits, Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy. The aim of this study was to examine the associations between DT traits, sleep disturbances, anxiety sensitivity and intolerance of uncertainty.
Method:
A total of 341 adults (M=29years) completed a series of questionnaires related to the DT traits, sleep disturbances, anxiety sensitivity, and intolerance of uncertainty.
Results:
A higher DT total score was associated with increased sleep disturbances, and higher scores for anxiety sensitivity and intolerance of uncertainty. In regression analyses Machiavellianism and psychopathy were predictors of sleep disturbances, anxiety sensitivity, and intolerance of uncertainty.
Conclusions:
Results indicate that specific DT traits, namely Machiavellianism and psychopathy, are associated with sleep disturbances, anxiety sensitivity and intolerance of uncertainty in young adults.
A robust literature has emerged on the Dark Triad (DT) of personality – Machiavellianism (MACH), psychopathy, and narcissism. Questions remain as to whether MACH and psychopathy are distinguishable and whether MACH's empirical and theoretical networks are consistent. In Study 1 (N = 393), factor analyses were used to compare 2 (MACH and psychopathy combined + narcissism) and 3 factor models with both fitting the data equally well. In Studies 1 and 2 (N = 341), DT scores were examined in relation to a variety of external criteria including self and informant ratings of personality, adverse developmental experiences, and psychopathological symptoms/behaviors. In both studies, MACH and psychopathy manifested nearly identical empirical profiles and both were significantly related to disinhibitory traits thought to be antithetical to MACH. In Study 3 (N = 36), expert ratings of the FFM traits prototypical of MACH were collected and compared with empirically derived profiles. Measures of MACH yielded profiles that were inconsistent with the prototypical expert-rated profile due to their positive relations with a broad spectrum of impulsivity-related traits. Ultimately, measures of psychopathy and MACH appear to be measuring the same construct and MACH assessments fail to capture the construct as articulated in theoretical descriptions. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Psychopathy is a condition that has long captured the public imagination. Newspaper column inches are devoted to murderers with psychopathic features and movies such as No Country for Old Men and We Need to Talk About Kevin focus on characters who are exceptionally cold and callous. Psychopathy is in fact a personality disorder characterised by lack of empathy and guilt, shallow affect, manipulation of other people and severe, premeditated and violent antisocial behaviour. Individuals with psychopathy generate substantial societal costs both as a direct financial consequence of their offending behaviour and lack of normal participation in working life, but also in terms of the emotional and psychological costs to their victims.
The increasingly well funded and high-tech world of talent development (TD) represents an important investment for most sports. Reflecting traditional concepts of challenge and focus, the vast majority of such systems expend a great deal of effort maximizing support to the young athletes and trying to counter the impact of naturally occurring life stressors. In this article, we suggest that much of this effort is misdirected; that, in fact, talented potential can often benefit from, or even need, a variety of challenges to facilitate eventual adult performance. Our argument is built on evidence that such challenges are more common in athletes who reach the top, together with a critical consideration of the modus operandi and impact of psychological/character-focused interventions such as mental toughness and resilience. In conclusion, we explore some implications for the design and conduct of optimum academies and TD environments.
Correlations between the factors characteristic of competitive sports and the dark triad
- Y Ueno
- T Shimotsukasa
- S Suyama
- A Oshio
Ueno, Y., Shimotsukasa, T., Suyama, S., & Oshio, A. (2017). Correlations between the factors characteristic of
competitive sports and the dark triad. Journal of Physical Education and Sport ® (JPES), 17 (2), 533-536.
https://doi.org/DOI:10.7752/jpes.2017.02080