Researchers have proposed that a range of harmful personality traits may stem from the same underlying tendency, and there’s even a test that can estimate how strongly it appears in someone.
Psychological thrillers like American Psycho, Nightcrawler, and Gone Girl can leave viewers wondering how far human darkness can really go — and, occasionally, whether any of those tendencies could exist in ordinary people too.
‘how do I know I don’t have a hidden away part of myself which harbors a similar darkness?’
For anyone curious about what psychology says on that question, there is a test intended to explore the more troubling side of personality.
A 2018 paper published in Psychological Review examined the idea in depth and helped popularize what the authors called the Dark Factor of Personality, or D.
‘The dark core of personality’
“many negatively connoted personality traits (often termed “dark traits”) have been introduced to account for ethically, morally, and socially questionable behavior”
Among the traits discussed are spitefulness, egoism, narcissism, sadism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. While those labels may sound very different from one another, the research suggests they are more connected than they first appear.
The researchers say there is a framework that identifies
‘the common core of dark traits’
They named it
‘Dark Factor of Personality‘
or simply D.
The concept builds on earlier work by English psychologist Charles Spearman, who argued that people who perform well on one kind of cognitive test often do well across others too. In a similar way, the team behind this study argues that darker personality traits may all reflect one shared underlying core.
In simple terms, showing one dark trait may make it more likely that others are present as well.
There are two versions of the D test. One uses 16 statements to give a
‘rough estimate’
while a longer version uses 70 statements for a
‘good estimate’
The response options run from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree.
“People who mess with me always regret it,”
“Most people deserve respect,”
“Payback needs to be quick and nasty,”
“My own pleasure is all that matters.”
After identifying several negative personality traits, the researchers then tried to isolate the single factor connecting them all — the D-factor.
To do that, they carried out four separate studies involving more than 2,500 participants in the original paper, and later work has used much larger samples to refine the questionnaires and test the idea more broadly.
The study identified nine dark traits: egoism, machiavellianism, moral disengagement, narcissism, psychological entitlement, psychopathy, sadism, self-interest, and spitefulness.
Participants were asked to agree or disagree with statements like those used in the D test.
“It is hard to get ahead without cutting corners here and there”
“I know that I am special because everyone keeps telling me so”
“It is sometimes worth a little suffering on my part to see others receive the punishment they deserve,’
Regardless of whether someone leaned more toward psychopathy, sadism, or egoism, the researchers found the same broad motive underneath: prioritizing personal gain even when it harms other people.
D is subsequently defined as:
“The general tendency to maximize one’s individual utility — disregarding, accepting, or malevolently provoking disutility for others —, accompanied by beliefs that serve as justifications.”
The Dark Factor website expands on that definition.
“D is a basic, general dispositional tendency, which means that D is responsible for and can be evident in any specific aversive trait (such as, for example, Psychopathy) and any malevolent behavior (for example, abusing, bullying, cheating, intimidating, insulting, exploiting, harassing, humiliating, hurting, lying, manipulation, molesting, stealing, taunting, threatening, tormenting, torturing, trolling, etc.).”
In other words, the dark traits psychologists often study may all point back to the same central disposition: putting yourself above others, even when that causes harm, without the guilt or remorse many people would normally feel.
Ingo Zettler, Professor of Psychology at the University of Copenhagen, explained, as quoted by Medical Xpress:
“For example, in a given person, the D-factor can mostly manifest itself as narcissism, psychopathy or one of the other dark traits, or a combination of these.
“But with our mapping of the common denominator of the various dark personality traits, one can simply ascertain that the person has a high D-factor. This is because the D-factor indicates how likely a person is to engage in behaviour associated with one or more of these dark traits.”
Zettler added that recognizing this shared core may help researchers better understand someone’s overall mental state, as well as the likelihood of engaging
‘in more harmful behavior’
or
‘reoffending,’
If you want to take the D test yourself to see how you score, you can do so here.
It’s worth keeping in mind that the D questionnaire is a research and self-assessment tool, not a clinical diagnosis. Scores can offer a rough indication of how strongly someone endorses attitudes linked to selfish, exploitative or callous behavior, but they do not determine whether a person will act badly in real life. Researchers also note that the exact meaning of a D score can vary a little depending on which dark-trait items are included in a given version of the questionnaire.
The idea has continued to attract attention since the original paper, with later studies using the D framework to look at topics such as risky decision-making, job interests, and how social conditions may shape dark personality traits. In that broader view, D is treated less like a label for a villain and more like a dimension of personality that can help explain why some people are more willing than others to exploit, deceive, or harm for personal gain.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available through Mental Health America.
Call or text 988 to reach a 24-hour crisis center or you can webchat at
988lifeline.org
You can also reach the Crisis Text Line by texting MHA to 741741.