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
Previous research on the connection between the Dark Triad traits and aggression is largely based on self-report measures. This paper examines how the traits of Machiavellianism, psychopathy and...Show morePrevious research on the connection between the Dark Triad traits and aggression is largely based on self-report measures. This paper examines how the traits of Machiavellianism, psychopathy and narcissism affect aggression in an experimental setting. Based on the previous literature, we hypothesized that Machiavellianism and psychopathy were positively correlated with aggression, while narcissism would be unrelated. We used the Attacker-Defender Conflict (AD-C), an economic contest well suited to study aggression. The incentivized AD-C was implemented in an online environment where attackers and defenders, who were matched afterwards, competed for resources. Attackers decided how much they would invest in order to beat the defender and gain money at their expense. If the defender successfully defended by investing more or an equal amount as the attacker, both parties kept their non-invested resources. Out of 301 participants, the attacker conflict investment of 132 attackers was used to measure aggression. Participants also completed the Short Dark Triad, a self-report questionnaire that evaluates Dark Triad traits. Our analysis showed a positive correlation between Machiavellianism and aggression, but only when the other two traits were held constant. Contrary to our assumption, psychopathy was negatively related to aggression. Finally, narcissism was not significantly correlated with aggression. These findings imply that, while the understanding of Machiavellianism and narcissism based on self-report measures of aggression are supported in our study, psychopathy’s connection to aggression may have either been misunderstood before or unknown factors played a significant role by confounding the results. Implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research are discussed.Show less
Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by affective, interpersonal, and behavioural problems. The current study aims to examine the role of psychopaths’ emotional deficiencies in their...Show morePsychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by affective, interpersonal, and behavioural problems. The current study aims to examine the role of psychopaths’ emotional deficiencies in their moral reasoning. We hypothesized that psychopathy severity predicts utilitarian decisions (1), empathy (2), and alexithymia (3) and that the relationship between psychopathy severity and utilitarian decision-making is mediated by empathy (4) and alexithymia (5). A total of 20 PCL-R confirmed psychopaths psychiatric inpatients were recruited from five different psychiatric hospitals in the Netherlands. Empathy and alexithymia were measured using the IRI and TAS-20 questionnaires. Each participant was shown 12 fictional moral dilemmas to which a utilitarian (greater good-sacrificial) or deontological (harm-avoiding) action had to be chosen. Contrary to expectations (1), results showed that psychopathy severity was negatively related to utilitarian decision-making (β = -.49, p = .030), with higher PCL-R scores reflecting lower percentages of utilitarian decisions on moral dilemmas. All other hypotheses were not supported, as psychopathy severity was not related to any empathy subscale (2) β ranging from <∣.01∣ to ∣.35∣, p > .05) or alexithymia subscale (3) (β ranging from ∣.16∣ to ∣.30∣, p > .05), and no mediation effects were found for either empathy (4) (β ranging from <∣.01∣ to ∣.23∣, BCIs contain 0) or alexithymia (5) (β ranging from ∣.01∣ to ∣.04∣, BCIs contain 0). A possible explanation for the contradictory finding that higher scoring psychopaths make fewer utilitarian decisions is the study setting. Despite the study data being used solely for academic purposes, participants might feel a need to ‘’fake good’’ to nonetheless avoid any negative evaluations that might affect their sentence. Furthermore, the inability to detect any mediative effects might be due to the current studies limited sample size. This made it unfeasible for analyses to differentiate the variables psychopathy and moral reasoning into potentially meaningful subcategories. Future studies should examine how these subcategories relate to moral decision-making. Additionally, it is recommended to make further efforts to minimize the perceived need to fake good, to further investigate the counterintuitive finding that higher scoring psychopaths display more harm-avoiding moral reasoning than lower scoring psychopaths.Show less
Deficiencies in empathic functioning are known to lay at the core of psychopathy and have been suggested to explain their immoral behavior. Although empathy can be divided into affective and...Show moreDeficiencies in empathic functioning are known to lay at the core of psychopathy and have been suggested to explain their immoral behavior. Although empathy can be divided into affective and cognitive components which have been shown to play an integral role in information processing when viewing others’ morally laden actions, the individual contribution of each component on the interpersonal behavior remains to be determined. This study set out to investigate whether incarcerated psychopathic offenders evaluate social situations different to non-psychopathic controls. An adapted version of the Dictator Game using an empathy induction protocol was employed to measure prosocial sharing behavior indicative of how an agent’s behavior is evaluated. Psychopaths showed less differentiation in sharing behavior which might be explained by an impairment of the affective component of empathy. Therefore, the tendencies of psychopaths to adjust to these scenarios should be taken into account when creating treatment plans against recidivism in psychopathic offenders.Show less
In the past, research on prosocial behaviors in antisocial and psychopathic violent offenders focused on their empathetic tendencies and the resulting prosocial behavior under negatively valenced...Show moreIn the past, research on prosocial behaviors in antisocial and psychopathic violent offenders focused on their empathetic tendencies and the resulting prosocial behavior under negatively valenced social situations (e.g. pain inflicted), disregarding the potential of positively valenced situations to elicit such behavior. This study aimed at closing this gap, by assessing prosocial behavior in psychopathic and antisocial violent offenders as opposed to a non-offender group, after presenting them with positively valenced social situations. This was done by employing an Empathy Dictator Game (EDG), in which 50 participants were asked to distribute coins between themselves and a male or female target, which they previously observed in a neutral, positive, or prosocial situation. Results showed that while psychopathic offenders did not differ significantly in their coin offers from antisocial offenders or the control group, the prosociality of the social situation influenced higher coin allocation. This effect was especially strong for individuals higher in empathetic skills. Lastly, male targets generally received more coins than female targets. This effect further influenced the effect of the diagnosis of participants on prosocial behavior, yet not the effect of the valence of the social situation. Taken together, these results suggest that violent offenders lacking empathy do have the capacity to display prosocial behaviors under the right circumstances and practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.Show less
