Hi! I’m Wang Fang. How are you?

In the previous episode we introduced the defining features of each Dark Triad trait. The next question is: why place these three together? What do they share? Is there adark core? Yes. Distilled to their common essence, the three combineself-centeredness, manipulation, and callousness.”。

First, all threecenter on self-interest, placing vanity, success, and the pursuit of stimulation above the interests of other people and society.Second, all three areskilled at manipulation and inclined to exploit others for personal gain, though their usual strategies differ. Narcissists may be relatively gentle, using display or inducements to make others admire or submit to them. Psychopaths are harsher, more ruthless, and more direct, applying power or threatening force. Machiavellians are the most accomplished: their strategies can be indirect, flexible, and carefully tailored to the target’s preferences—a deluxe menu offering devotion or pragmatism, sweetness or severity. Finally, all three showlittle empathy for others’ feelings. Narcissists may lack empathy because they feel so good about themselves and use others as tools to sustain that feeling: “You foolish mortals!” The other two lack this superiority motive. Machiavellians disregard feelings because exploiting others achieves their goals, while psychopaths simply possess shallow emotions.

In summary,all three embrace a self-serving creed of “every person for themselves,” together with a rogue spirit that ignores rules, lacks boundaries, bullies the weak, fears the strong, and uses any means necessary.

This raises another question: which is darkest? If forced to choose one as a friend, which would you select?

I would probably choose the narcissist. Annoying, yes, but still tolerable. Compared with the other two, narcissists need more social approval and therefore engage in somewhat less antisocial behavior. They may perform good deeds—provided those deeds earn fame and praise. Anonymous kindness does not interest them, but offer a large trophy and public acclaim, and they may become quite generous. The behavior is not heartfelt but a performance intended to win positive evaluation. Still, it is a faint ray of light within the Dark Triad—weak, but light nonetheless (Zuo et al., 2016).