The leader-member exchange (LMX) theory emphasises the relationship between leaders and subordinates at the workplace, suggesting that leaders quickly create in and out-groups with certain...Show moreThe leader-member exchange (LMX) theory emphasises the relationship between leaders and subordinates at the workplace, suggesting that leaders quickly create in and out-groups with certain subordinates which can lead to in-group bias, the act of favouritism of members of your in-group compared to members of an out group. An in-group is a social group which an individual identifies with, whilst an out-group is consequently the dissimilarity to an in-group. It has also been found that people who score highly on the Dark Triad are likely to hold leadership positions. The Dark Triad is a psychological theory of personality illustrating three dark personality types consisting of malicious qualities: Machiavellianism, sub-clinical narcissism and sub-clinical psychopathy. With leaders scoring highly on the Dark Triad and the plausibility of in-group bias occurring in organisations, it is important to investigate whether the Dark Triad influences in-group bias to remove in-group bias from a leader and organisation and cease LMX from forming. Therefore, this paper examines whether in-group bias is present using the dictator game and whether the Dark Triad (both traits individually and as a whole) accentuates in-group bias. First-year psychology students from Leiden University (n = 75) participated in a dictator game to measure in-group bias, before completing the SD3 questionnaire to measure levels of the Dark Triad. Three hypotheses were made: firstly, dictators will allocate a higher endowment to in-group recipients compared to out-group recipients. Secondly, participants scoring highly on either Machiavellianism, narcissism, or both will have a higher in-group bias. Thirdly, participants scoring highly on the Dark Triad as a whole will demonstrate higher in-group bias. Results indicate in-group bias, however, no significant results were found in the relationship between the Dark Triad and in-group bias. This is the first paper to directly investigate the relationship between the Dark Triad and in-group bias with many limitations obstructing the accuracy and generalisability of the results. Therefore, this study lays the groundwork for future research in investigating this relationship.Show less
