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The Dark and Light Triad of Personality Traits and Self-Deception

CSEF · 2023 Behavioral & Social Sciences (Senior Division)

Andrea Gavel, Kevin Wu

Overview

Individuals scoring high on the Dark Triad scale—a measure of three significantly positively correlated traits: narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism—are unpleasant and deceptive with others. Contrastingly, those scoring high on the Light Triad scale—a measure of three significantly positively correlated traits: humanism, faith in humanity, and Kantianism—are amiable and honest towards others. We sought to determine if there is a difference in self-deception between the two groups. We surveyed 269 participants using validated measures of the Dark Triad, Light Triad, and the BIDR Self-Deception Scale to measure the correlations between these three aspects. As expected, we found a negative correlation between the Light and Dark Triads scores, r(269) = -0.286p < 0.001. Additionally, we found a significant positive correlation (r (269) = 0.316, p < 0001) between BIDR and Light Triad scores and a significant negative correlation (r(269) = -0.167, p < 0.001) between BIDR and Dark Triad scores. The results demonstrate that Dark Triad individuals lie to others but deceive themselves less. Contrastingly, Light Triad individuals are honest with others but lie to themselves – likely to enhance their self-esteem. Before this study, we assumed people with high Dark Triad scores deceived themselves more than those with high Light Triad scores. We are unsure why the relationships differ from the expectations, but these findings are interesting and require further research.

Source coverage

This record comes from a published award list, not a complete project archive. Its abstract comes from CSEF's public project showcase as archived by the Internet Archive before judging (https://web.archive.org/web/20230401224130/https://ca-csef.zfairs.com/showcase/ShowcaseInfo?f=838e60b7-ea75-46e8-865c-fde4864244b3); the version presented may differ.

Awards (1)

  • Sponsored Award: Fourth Place IRI Award

Competition history

  • CSEF 2023 Behavioral & Social Sciences (Senior Division) · Entry S0408

Resources

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