Implicit judgments about the Other with vivid manifestations of Dark Triad traits. Comparison with research data
The implicit social judgments about personality of the Other, who demonstrated an evident dark-triad profile, were compared with the research data examining correlations between Dark Triad and Big Five / HEXACO traits. The study involved 460 students from 18 to 24 years old (M = 20.38, SD = 0.87), 101 (22%) male and 359 (78%) female. The perceptive objects were represented by young man and woman - the characters of the staged interview, during which they answered the questions of the Short Dark Triad questionnaire as absolutely “good” or “bad” person. After viewing the interview, participants assessed the personality of the objects by the list of 24 adjectives used in everyday discourse. It was found that implicit judgments about the personality of the Other form a five-factor structure that corresponds to the basic (dispositional) personality traits. Objects with the contrast manifestations of Dark Triad received statistically different estimates for all dispositional traits. The personality of the “bad” Other was assessed as more extraverted, opened to experience, less conscientious, less agreeable and less honest. These results correspond to previously obtained research data. It was found that sex makes weak effect on the patterns found. The results also suggest that the respondents with a high Dark Triad poorly distinguish between the “good” and “bad” Others and their sex is a more obvious mediating factor in this case.