Talk:Dark triad
The Vulnerable Dark Traits[edit source]
The idea that just because someone is "Dark" does not make them more attractive.
Studies show that women are LESS attractive to Vulnerable Dark Traits, in particular BPD. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886920301537
Dark Triad is characterized by Grandiose Narcissism, Affective/Interpersonal Psychopathy, and Machiavellianism/Histrionic Personality. Vulnerable Dark Triaf is characterized by Vulnerable Narcissism, Impulsive/Deviant Psychopathy, and Borderline Personality.
And there are personality differences between Dark Triad and Vulnerable Dark Triad, Extraversion (and Openness) in particular. Other than that, those two types are the same in Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism. The first link shows the table for Dark Traits and the second Vulnerable Dark traits. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Correlations-of-the-Dark-Triad-with-the-Big-Five-cognitive-ability-and-self-enhancement_tbl1_222828329 https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Searching-for-a-vulnerable-dark-triad%3A-comparing-2-Miller-Dir/627a2d72670f67c0a13f7730aa6cd02e9809c872/figure/1
If there is a correlation between Extraversion-Openness and Agreeableness-Conscientiousness-Neuroticism, it is clearly Plasticity vs Stability https://philipperushton.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/The-Genetics-and-Evolution-of-the-General-Factor-of-Personality-2008-by-John-Philippe-Rushton-Trudy-Ann-Bons-Yoon-Mi-Hur.pdf https://philipperushton.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/The-General-Factor-of-Personality-Normal-and-Abnormal-2011-by-John-Philippe-Rushton-Paul-Irwing.pdf https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886908004248
And this two-dimensional personality analysis "Circumplex" is well known to work with Dark and Vulnerable Dark traits. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.552740/full https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Angular-location-of-personality-metatraits-with-95-confidence-intervals-and-the_tbl1_329179000 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00343/full https://doi.org/10.1002/per.2206
For reference to the differences between those two types, take a look at these links and diagrams. https://unillustratedadventures.tumblr.com/post/612747219319308288/dark-traits-traits-of-psychopathy-sadism https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886920301306
TL;DR: The only difference between PUAs or Chads, and Incels, is simply a difference in Openness and Extraversion.
Homework for the reader: 1. Correlate Dark and Vulnerable Dark Traits with Autism, ADHD, and Bipolar or the "Chapnik Creative Triad". https://dondepresso.rujic.net/post/129849055673/adhdimensional-ascension-timeline
2. Correlate the answers to question 1 with the Light Triad (Humanism, Kantianism, Faith in Humanity) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00467/full
3. Critique on the research of "The Dark Factors" and how it is different from the Dark Triad. https://www.darkfactor.org/ -previously unsigned comment by 183.179.53.41
- >"The idea that just because someone is "Dark" does not make them more attractive."
Any particular trait you want to pick out (even looks somewhat) doesn't explain most of the variance female rated desirability and mating outcomes in men. The DT can also strongly promote male mating success without actually being directly attractive to women, as I elaborate on in the lede to this article.
> "Vulnerable Dark Triaf is characterized by Vulnerable Narcissism [...]"
Yes, the whole concept of the "vulnerable dark triad" is not reflected in the current version of the article. However, applying the idea of the vulnerable dark triad to the incel question creates a "chicken and the egg" question. Are these individuals "vulnerable" simply because they do not meet with the sexual/social success they come to expect. The dichotomy between their inflated self-concept and their lack of material success may create a cognitive dissonance that leads to them doubling down on their narcissism, etc., while still knowing in their hearts that they are "losers"? Or it because there are different "cores" to the dark triad, and the sensitivity and instability, etc., these people have is reflective of failed adaptions to a fast life history strategy. Expectancy effects also play a role here. Can you imagine the reaction Donald Trump, for example, would get from people in general if he was a 5'5 Walmart greeter with the same personality he has? You can see how the underlying genetic traits get shaped into certain directions via social reinforcement.
As to the first study you linked, well, it has a few issues. The major one is that it completely lacks ecological validity, with the women rating vignettes and not actual individuals. While such research may be relevant to discerning women's ideal mate preferences to some degree, the application that these ideal preferences have to actual revealed preferences and mating outcomes is not clear (Paul Eastwick) has done a lot of excellent research on how ideal partner preferences may not be reflective of actual partner preferences. They are likely even less reflective of actual mating outcomes).
In terms of the evidence of that, well borderline is part of the Cluster-B series of personality disorders, and they seem to be highly promiscuous (and have high reproductive success) as I wrote here: (https://incels.wiki/w/Dark_triad#Cluster-B_personality_disorders_lead_to_3.5x_as_many_sexual_partners_and_more_offspring) An issue is that borderline personality disorder seems to be a majority female disorder (likely simply the female manifestation of psychopathy, psychopathy as influenced by female gender roles and genetic behavioral dispositions). So you could argue the sexually successful men in that study were all APD or NPD guys, and the BPD guys were less sexually successful. But it appears that there is no difference in terms of the prevalence of sexual relationships in general (https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/pedi.2008.22.6.564). What is interesting, however, is that they seem to be massively more likely to be homo/bisexual. So BPD is linked to effeminacy and likely hypersexuality in men. This means that it is likely a strong fast-life strategy adaption, perhaps even more so than "conventional" psychopathy. This casts doubts on the claim that BPD guys would be less sexually successful than men with other high-DT traits.
> "TL;DR: The only difference between PUAs or Chads, and Incels, is simply a difference in Openness and Extraversion."
Extraversion does seem to be generally linked to sexual success in men, yes (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886918306159), though likely not to the degree where it the sole difference between an "incel" and a "chad." Openness doesn't seem to be firmly (or even significantly) linked to sexual success in men to any major degree, though it appears low openness weakly predicts reproduction in men (perhaps because it's non-linearly correlated with IQ?). The GFP is generally the opposite of the dark triad in both of its variations. Though it does seem to be associated with narcissism (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886915006017), provide support for the "dark dyad" model of the DT and the idea that narcissism is both a less socially aversive aspect of the DT and perhaps also reflective of a slow-life history strategy to some degree. Factor analysis also supports this thesis. (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1073191117701192)
> "Correlate the answers to question 1 with the Light Triad (Humanism, Kantianism, Faith in Humanity)"
There isn't enough evidence on the "light triad" to see how it relates to sexuality as of yet. As those traits would be predictive of altruism to some extent, it may promote sexual success via that pathway in some men (interestingly, it may not be opposed or orthogonal to the dark triad facets as psychopathy can be predictive of altruism in some instances, due to the fearless dominance link and the desire to show off, I bet).
> "Critique on the research of "The Dark Factors" and how it is different from the Dark Triad."
The main difference is that the "Dark Factor" measures the free-rider adaption aspects of the DT directly while the DT measures this indirectly via behaviors and attitudes (which are reflective of that behavioral disposition). But as the dark "triad" might not be, as a unified construct, wholly reflective of such adaptions to begin with (as I noted above), this creates issues where there can be significant divergence between the two constructs. It would seem to be evolutionarily advantageous for women to be attracted to free-riders in the context of modern society, so this can explain the high DT incels, perhaps. They have low empathy and other traits that reflect the dark triad but may lack these specific adaptions in many cases.
Anyway your criticisms are quite welcome, have been noted and some will likely be incorporated into the relevant articles in the future. Altmark22 (talk) 15:18, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
Discussion on the "Women desiring marriage and commitment are more attracted to narcissistic men" study[edit source]
Bibipi (talk) 10:41, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
- This is inane, the very definition of narcissism is inclusive of "excessive self-worth". They are talking about confidence, not narcissism. Those idiots do actually have a point, but they are too moronic to grasp the point that the distinction is between fragile vs. dominant narcissism, not narcissism compared to confidence or self-efficiency (confidence in one's capabilities). The NPI is inclusive of the "unhealthy narcissism" they referred to. Still, it is true that the whole "fragile" dark triad angle is missing from the article, and would be good to cover. However, that leaves open the question of whether women aren't attracted to such men, like the narcissistic incels that guy mentions (and thus their excessive self-worth is fragile) due to other factors than their narcissism. Altmark22 (talk) 10:46, 13 June 2021 (UTC)
Vulnerable Dark Triad Part 2: VDT[edit source]
- DT is more likely to believe in religion for non-intrinsic reasons http://journal.konselor.or.id/index.php/counsedu/article/download/103/pdf - VDT are prone to Religious Fundamentalism https://www.karger.com/Article/Pdf/443901
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/8/3941/pdf
There are three forms of Narcissism: DT Narcissism, VDT Narcissism, Collectivism https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/49e8b240413f2b04d7e826e5a775b7c6223eba94
- DT have high SDO http://teamvdf.free.fr/TER%20M1/Role%20of%20dark%20personalities.pdf - VDT have low SDO 10.1371/journal.pone.0073440
Regarding BPD: BPD is correlated to Neglect and Abuse (both Sexual Non-sexual) - https://scielo.isciii.es/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0213-61632015000200002 - 10.1176/ajp.146.4.490
Low Prenatal Testosterone and high Estrogen BPD-like illnesses - https://www.scielo.br/j/rbp/a/gTKTftSmrbpkmRVcqhgMCkJ/?lang=en&format=pdf - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7325465 - 10.1177/0300060520929148 - https://openarchive.ki.se/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10616/41207/Thesis\_Anette\_Johansson.pdf?sequence=5&isAllowed=y
Cause of Low Prenatal Testosterone - Younger Siblings https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5597951 - Older Mothers and Career Women https://www.healthline.com/health/low-testosterone-causes#symptoms - Low Bodyweight (muscle OR fat) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5597951 - Oral Contraception https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306453008003223 --- previously unsigned comment by 2001:67c:2628:647:12::65
>DT is more likely to believe in religion for non-intrinsic reasons
This is an interesting, though not surprising finding. It would probably be more suited to an article on religion than this one, though.
>VDT are prone to Religious Fundamentalism
This is line with a thread of research that tends to suggest that extreme religiosity can often be associated with socially averse behaviors/tendencies. The idea is that religiosity is associated with good things up to a point (health, empathy, altruism, fertility), but when it comes to fundamentalism it may be associated with greater rates of psychopathy, certain sexual identities (gay shaman theory), and so on. This may make sense either via the simple explanation of these people seeking positions of power and influence to implement their nefarious schemes as they usually do, or via psychopathic deviance being associated with greater affinity for ideologies and beliefs that are outside of the norm in society. In contemporary Western countries religious fundamentalism is subcultural and generally low-status and adherents are seen by the bulk of society as kooks. Again, probably more suited to a religion article.
>There are three forms of Narcissism
The narcissism spectrum concept or the three-factor model of narcissism would be excellent to add as they tie in with a number of themes. First, vulnerable narcissism seems to be less socially adaptive than the others, and thus it may be associated with lower sexual success, likability, social exclusion. Incels basically. The idea of communal narcissism is interesting as it seems to explain why some studies indicate narcissism is a slow-life history trait or otherwise distinct from the other two dark traids (dark dyad model).
>BPD is correlated to Neglect and Abuse (both Sexual Non-sexual)
This is something that may be better suited to the life history page. BPD seems to be mainly a female disorder, basically the female expression of psychopathy. The behavior associated with this condition corresponds more to female gender norms and prob also their biological wiring. In line with the research you posted and the BDP-female link, there is evidence that females are sexually abused quite more often than boys https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23178922/ (but boys would be expected to be more likely to underreport). While it is difficult to argue CSA is a proximate cause of BPD (as children are often molested by their parents or those otherwise genetically related to them), studies on the relative genetic/environmental contributions to age of first debut do tend to suggest sexual abuse is directly pushing women towards a fast-life history strategy. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18193478/ (no genetic influence on age of first consensual intercourse among women who reported CSA). Though this is prob partly confounded by the heritability of the environmental conditions that expose children to such abuse in the first place.
>Low Prenatal Testosterone and high Estrogen BPD-like illnesses
At first it seemed to be to be a stretch to link Bi-Polar and Schizophrenia to BPD, but some have argued that schizophrenia and autism exist on a continuum and have attempted to tie this in with life history theory, claiming that schizophrenia represents a maladaptive (due to mutations, early environmental stressors or w/e) fast life history strategy with the opposite holding for autism. This line of research seems highly speculative, however.
Bi-polar and BPD seem to be moderately linked to one another. https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/ajp.2006.163.7.1173
I'd focus more on directresearch on the vulnerable DT and prenatal T, however. Don't want to get to sidetracked. Altmark22 (talk) 11:25, 12 July 2021 (UTC)
Questions[edit source]
1. Should dark triad individuals be contained through rewards ("reward-based treatment")? 2. What can be done on a social scale, for the dark traits? 3. Are dark triad assortative in mating? 4. How close are dark triad to vulnerable dark triad (BPD, vulnerable narcissism, sociopathy)? 5. Are DT genetically unique, compared to how VDT can relate to autism and trauma? 6. Are VDT, trauma, and autism ALSO assortative in mating? 7. Can VDT-like symptoms be cured through blue pills, red pills, or "welfare measures"? 8. Can this info be cross-related to the "Dark Core" theory?