The Dark Tetrad Is the Perfect Example of Humanity’s Evil Side

As a Ph.D. researcher, I enjoy gathering insights that will help me better understand our sense of personality, behavior, and mind. While we can’t change how people behave — surely we can identify some of the more dark and questionable sides of our personalities.

I can’t help but wonder if it is possible to measure evil. It seems that researchers have tried their best to explore this question in greater detail.

Contemporary researchers have introduced what is called the “Dark Triad” of personality traits. This research suggests that there are three interrelated personal traits: psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. Together, all of these three traits make up the dark triad.

Recently some researchers have included another trait, sadism, making it the “Dark Tetrad”.

Let’s explore what each term means.

Diving Deep Into the Dark Tetrad

1. Psychopathy

Psychopathy is usually conflated with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), though the connection is sometimes hotly debated.

In this piece, psychotherapy is interpreted as a series of specific behavioral patterns that include a lack of empathy. This means that most emotional responses lack a clear sense of conscience.

This means individuals with suspected psychopathy are unbothered and apathetic to the feelings of others. They also possess deceitful traits, where they are highly impulsive and charming (on a superficial level).

2. Narcissism

Narcissistic personality traits can be displayed through a range of dysfunctional types of self-obsessive behaviors. These include grandiose charisma, egoistic tendencies, fragile egos, self-centeredness and many more.

Narcissistic individuals with highly psychopathic traits are most likely to be extremely self-centered because of their reduced (if not possibly absent) levels of conscience.

3. Machiavellianism

Machiavellianism implies specific behavioral patterns like calculative, cold and manipulative cunningness. Individuals with Machiavellian tendencies generally use manipulation to fulfill their personal interests.

This kind of individual usually lacks ethical and moral reasoning (or has a lower reserve than most). One of the most perfect Machiavellian examples in pop culture would be Peter Baelish from Game of Thrones.

4. Sadism

Sadism implies getting pleasure from the suffering of others. Sadistic individuals usually like to criticize and insult others purposefully. They also enjoy inflicting physical psychological and social pain to others.

Through this type of pleasure, they like to exercise their sense of power and gain control and satisfaction from others.

Many sadistic individuals enjoy seeing others suffer — but not all engage in direct activities that inflict intentional pain. For instance, someone who enjoys violence in movies or video games may also like to watch violent content — but not necessarily act upon it.

Final Takeaways

From the literature I have examined, there seems to be a scale that can measure each aspect of the Dark Triad, such as psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism.

However, there is no scale to adequately measure sadism. In the future, perhaps researchers will find ways to measure it more appropriately.

There is no doubt that the dark tetrad portrays a perfect illustration of the darker aspects of humanity. Thus, having knowledge about it might empower us to identify such individuals, and allow us to distance ourselves from them.

As Kofi Annan once famously wrote,

“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.”

Thank you for reading ❤

Disclaimer: The original version of this story was published on another platform.

Link to original version: https://medium.com/preoccupy-negative-thoughts/the-dark-tetrad-is-the-perfect-example-of-humanitys-evil-side-b1d042464f3f

References

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Buckels, E. E., Jones, D. N., & Paulhus, D. L. (2013). Behavioral confirmation of everyday sadism. Psychological Science, 24(11), 2201–2209. doi: 10.1177/0956797613490749

Chabrol, H., Melioli, T., Leeuwen, N. V., Rodgers, R., & Goutaudier, N. (2015). The Dark Tetrad: Identifying personality profiles in high-school students. Personality and Individual Differences, 83. 97–101. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2015.03.051

Emamzadeh, A. (2019, October 10). Should the dark triad become the dark tetrad? Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-new-home/201910/should-the-dark-triad-become-the-dark-tetrad

Hammond, C. (2015, November 13). The dark tetrad: Possibly the scariest boss. PsychCentral. https://psychcentral.com/pro/exhausted-woman/2015/11/the-dark-tetrad-possibly-the-scariest-boss#2

Jonason, P. K., & Webster, G. D. (2010). The dirty dozen: A concise measure of the dark triad. Psychological Assessment, 22(2), 420–432. doi: 10.1037/a0019265

Langley, T. (2016, June 20). Naming evil: Dark triad, tetrad, malignant narcissism. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/beyond-heroes-and-villains/201606/naming-evil-dark-triad-tetrad-malignant-narcissism

Međedović, J., & Petrovic, B. (2015). The dark tetrad. Journal of Individual Differences, 36(4), 228–236. doi:10.1027/1614–0001/a000179