Why Poor Sense of Self Underlies Dark Triad Traits

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Information is power, and for those who seek to safeguard against nefarious manipulation, learning how personality works and what to watch out for translates awareness into savvy... driving our endless fascination with the “Dark Triad” of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.

Why sense of self matters

Sense of self is a key factor in understanding personality and relationships. A healthy sense of self is adaptive at all stages of life. Self-stability allows for continuity and persistence, while at the same time serving as a beacon for oneself and others so we can be flexible without losing the way.

A weak or unclear sense of self is problematic, associated with personality disorders and other psychiatric conditions, insecure attachment, difficulty with personal and professional relationships, and personal development hitches.

For example, research shows that people with a weak sense of self and anxious attachment tend to return to the dysfunctional relationships upon which their identity seems to depend. Yet, when people do get divorced, contrary to what many imagine, personality doesn’t particularly change. People who do want to change personality traits can, however, if we make a concerted effort.

Because many have difficulty building healthy relationships and often get stuck in dysfunction, it’s important to understand exactly how maladaptive personality may be contributing. It can be confusing to what extent the other is “driving us crazy” (whether intentional or not), to what extent we may have blind spots that leave us vulnerable—or both. Various factors including upbringing may leave us vulnerable to abuse, and understanding what’s going on helps people make better choices.

Researching sense of self in the Dark Triad

Recent research in Personality and Individual Differences (Doerfler, et al., 2021) probed which aspects of the Dark Triad account for a weakened, unclear sense of self. Researchers designed two studies. The first one established basic findings, while the second went deeper.

In Study 1, 298 college-age participants completed the “Who Am I?” task, an open-ended instrument in which participants complete the phrase “I am…” 15 times in order to pull out multiple facets of how they see themselves. Responses were coded by trained raters to distill out key themes and estimate both short-term (state) and long-term (trait) measures of sense of self. They completed the basic 12-time “Dirty Dozen”¹ survey of Dark Triad traits and the 12-item Sense of Self Scale².

Narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy were, as anticipated, correlated with each other as well as with a weaker sense of self. People with higher Machiavellianism and psychopathy were more likely to use state-based descriptions, rather than trait-based, suggesting greater instability in sense of self with the tendency toward short-term thinking and impulsive, risky decisions uninformed by self-awareness. These results held regardless of gender and age, at least in this sample of college-age individuals.

Study 2 was designed both to capture the nuances of sub-traits within narcissism and psychopathy, and to a lesser extent the more unitary Machiavellianism, and to differentiate the big three Dark Triad traits from one another in terms of sense of self and self-concept clarity.

Researchers asked 262 participants, covering a broader age range, to complete several validated measures: the Mach-IV for Machiavellianism, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), the Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale, the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale, and the Self-Concept Clarity Scale and Sense of Self Scale².

Again, high-level Dark Triad traits associated with a weaker sense of self and unclear self-concept. Men and women had similar results, despite the fact that men are more likely to be psychopathic. Interestingly, with age sense of self in Machiavellianism strengthened, suggesting greater awareness and self-acceptance.

Dark Triad Essential Reads

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When the analysis was extended to sub-traits, however, a different picture emerged. Looking at the underlying sub-traits of grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism, primary psychopathy, secondary psychopathy and Machiavellianism told a different story than the crude analysis.

Secondary psychopathy followed by vulnerable narcissism were most strongly correlated with a weaker and unclear sense of self. On the other hand, grandiose narcissism turned out to be mildly but significantly associated with a stronger sense of self.

Why would that be? Further analysis of the NPI found that Leadership/Authority components accounted for the stronger sense of self in Grandiose Narcissism, while other NPI traits of Grandiose Exhibitionism and Entitlement/Exploitativeness correlated with a weaker sense of self.

Looking more closely, vulnerable narcissism, encompassing underlying insecurity, emotional reactivity, and self-doubt, correlated with problems in sense of self. In contrast with grandiose narcissism, based on innate, authentic sense of superiority, the narcissism born from vulnerability is compensatory, covering up problems in sense of self often related to developmental adversity.

For grandiose narcissists higher on Leadership/Authority traits, sense and clarity of self were more robust. In contrast with the traumatic narcissism of the vulnerable narcissist, grandiose narcissism may overlap with “adaptive narcissism”—at least as long as other narcissistic traits like Grandiose Exhibitionism and Entitlement/Exploitativeness don’t get in the way.

Mirroring the relationship between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, primary psychopathy did not correlate with self-concept problems, while secondary psychopathy did. While on the surface, primary and secondary psychopathy appear similar, they are not. Primary psychopathy, sometimes called “true” psychopathy, is innate, characterized by callousness, lack of empathy, manipulativeness, and superficial emotion, whereas secondary psychopathy is characterized by impulsivity and hostility, with the potential for remorse and strong fear.

Secondary psychopathy is related to adverse developmental experiences including abuse and neglect, psychiatric disorders characterized by risk-taking and poor impulse control, and importantly, the potential for empathy. In fact, research demonstrates a subtype of the Dark Triad, the Dark Empath, combining maladaptive and prosocial traits.

Self-awareness and improving relationship choices

Depending on who we are and where we’re coming from, we may feel drawn to vulnerability and unclear or unformed identity in our partners. Sometimes this can work out well, and sometimes it leads us to keep making choices that end up in sorrow, rupture, or worse.

This happens because we’ve internalized caregiving patterns from early in life, it happens because we unconsciously copy what is familiar including problematic relationships our parents may have had, and it happens if we ourselves are still working out who we are and what we want and need.

When people are drawn to those with significant Dark Triad traits, the risks are considerably higher. Such relationships are more likely to be destructive and costly. Research on sense of self in Dark Triad personalities helps us to understand and identify red flags and exercise greater self-control to avoid forming traumatic attachments.

Therapeutic and self-directed developmental work helps us to build a stronger, more compassionate sense of self, learn where our blind spots are and build good self-relationship, identify healthier partners and cultivate more fulfilling, stable relationships.

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