Wondering to what extent dark personality traits are present with you? You can test it now.

A team of German and Danish psychologists has discovered the drive behind our most evil impulses. In a new study they define a 'dark factor' that is present in everyone and manifests, in extremis, in a whole range of personality disorders such as psychopathy, narcissism, selfishness and sadism. Wondering how developed the D-factor is with you? You can test it.

The researchers succeeded in defining the D-factor as "the tendency with which someone, without any compassion, pursues his or her own interests, even if that causes harm to others (or just for the purpose of harming someone), while you hold convictions that justify your behavior".

For their research, the scientists gave a group of test subjects a series of questions that determined how strongly 9 dark personality traits were present. It was about egoism, sadism, psychopathy, self-interest, revenge, narcissism (self-love), Machiavellisme (which says that everything is allowed in order to acquire power), moral detachment (the justification of behavior that does not fit with your own standard of values and norms) and psychological claim (the belief that you have more rights than another).

Test group

The members of the test group had to indicate to what extent they agreed with a series of statements such as “I know that I am special because everyone keeps telling me so”, “I would say everything to get what I want”, “It is hard to get ahead in life without cutting corners" and "hurting people would be exciting”.

The results showed that although the dark personality traits were very diverse, they overlap to a certain extent. And they discovered a central 'dark factor' that turned out to be present, but always expressed itself in a different way.

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. - Ingo Zettler, psychologist and one of the researchers.

The D-factor is not always extreme, but can also show itself in more daily bad behavior such as bullying, deceit, intimidation, stealing, insulting and threatening.

Usefulness of this research

You might wonder why anyone would want to know this, or what usefulness this type of research can have.

The fact is, if you only get questions about bad behavior, the ultimate outcome will always be a mix of bad personality traits. In itself logical, because this is also the purpose of the test. Therefore it is not a complete personality test.

However, by mapping the central motive, the results can be used in research into how we can interpret people's behavior. Suppose a judge has to decide on the early release of a convict. Knowledge of his D-factor can help to estimate whether bad behavior could happen again or derail even further. Of course this can only be useful in combination with other factors (life situation, personal network, etc.). In addition, it can help in finding suitable therapy for the person concerned.

In order to be able to interpret the results really well, much more research is needed. Since this concerns recent research, it is not yet possible to look at the extent to which these characteristics also express themselves in daily life. If the researchers show a long-term vision, (ex-)prisoners could be monitored and, for example, the results of the test could be linked to their further future lifespan. If it turns out that certain predictions come true, you already have a lot more knowledge and data to give the test a real scientific value. Whether this is ethically justifiable, that’s the question.

For people who like to measure everything: people often talk about their strengths, but it can also be useful to know your weaknesses. Many people are unconsciously aware of their 'bad side', but it could be enlightening to map them out. See it as your personal SWOT analysis.

Who is curious about his or her score, can participate in an online test of the researchers. You can choose from a test of 30, 60 or 90 questions, depending on how detailed you want the result. I prefer to keep my results for myself :).

The original articles can be found here and here

More information about the test can be found here

Sources photo 1, 2