Empathy and Dark Personalities

Abstract

Callousness or low empathy is a key feature of the so-called dark personality traits, in which the interest has been exponentially rising. The most prominent dark personality traits models are the Dark Triad, comprising three distinct, but overlapping traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy, and the Dark Tetrad, with the addition of sadism. Although both theoretical conceptualizations and empirical findings point to impaired empathy as the core of dark personalities, the associations between specific forms of empathy and dark traits are not so consistent. Thus, this chapter aims to provide a critical review of existing findings on the relationship between dark personality traits and specific forms of empathy. Moreover, it aims to offer interesting insights into empathy intervention possibilities in individuals with pronounced dark traits.

1. Introduction

In the past 20 years, the interest in the so-called park personality traits in the area of individual differences has been exponentially rising. What is creditable for this is the introduction of the Dark Triad of personality [1], which consists of three distinct, but conceptually and empirically overlapping traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy, while relatively recently sadism was added to this constellation, forming the Dark Tetrad [2, 3]. It is important to note that, although these traits (apart from Machiavellianism) migrated from clinical literature and practice and are similar to respective personality disorders (i.e. narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-5, by American Psychiatric Association [4], and sadistic personality disorder defined in earlier versions of DSM [5]), they refer to subclinical variants in the Dark Triad/Tetrad constellation (for a more detailed overview of Dark Triad and Tetrad traits, see [6, 7], respectively). Machiavellianism is characterized by duplicitous interpersonal style, manipulation, a cynical disregard of morality and a focus on self-interest and personal gain [8], narcissism by grandiose self-concept and attention-craving [9], and psychopathy by impulsivity and callous thrill-seeking [10], while sadism is characterized by the enjoyment of other people’s suffering [11]. However, although each of the traits has its specific features, they also share a common core of callousness (i.e. low empathy) and antagonism (e.g. [12, 13, 14]).

If we look at conceptualizations of the clinical counterparts of the dark traits, it can be noticed that a lack of empathy is one of the essential features of narcissistic personality disorder. More specifically, narcissistic personality disorder refers to a pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, and one of the criteria for this disorder listed in DSM-5 is “lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others” ([4], p. 670). The essential feature of antisocial personality disorder is a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the wishes, rights, or feelings of others, and callousness is one of the DSM-5 criteria for this personality disorder (specifically, “lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another” ([4], p. 659). The sadistic personality disorder was defined by a pervasive pattern of sadistic and cruel behavior and was identified in DSM-III-R as: using physical cruelty or violence to establish dominance in a relationship; humiliating others; treating, or disciplining others harshly; being amused or taking pleasure in the psychological or physical suffering of others; lying to harm others; intimidating others to get them to do what he/she wants; restricting the autonomy of close ones; and/or being fascinated by violence, weapons, injury, or torture [5]. Thus, callousness, lack of empathy, and antagonism are the defining features of each of these three personality disorders.

As noted earlier, Machiavellianism had a different etiology than the other three Dark Tetrad traits. Rather than a clinical syndrome (i.e. a personality disorder), this concept was named after the renaissance philosopher Nicolo Machiavelli and resembles a manipulative and callous character with a cynical worldview, duplicitous tactics, and strategic planning (see [15]). Moreover, it has been noted that the lack of empathy plays a causal role in determining Machiavellian behavior [16]. Analogously to the lack of empathy as the key common feature of dark traits’ clinical counterparts, the common feature explaining both the theoretical and empirical overlap between the Dark Tetrad traits is callousness, or lack of empathy toward others [7].

It is important to note that, from the evolutionary perspective, dark traits are adaptive, and the lack of empathy as a central feature of the dark traits may have an evolutionary advantage, enabling the dark personalities to get ahead. For example, in accordance with frequency-dependent selection, a small number of cheaters with exploitative tendencies can flourish in a society where the majority is oriented toward cooperation [17] (see [18] for more details on the evolutionary perspective on the Dark Triad traits). Similarly, fundamental neural mechanisms explaining sadism have been postulated [19, 20, 21]. More specifically, sadism can be viewed as a physiological response to, for example, war-induced callousness: an indifference to the suffering of others could be gradually transformed by evolutionary selection into the enjoyment of cruelty, especially if victims are perceived as dangerous outgroups, and the sadistic behavior could promote fitness via the maintenance of personal and social power.

In line with theoretical conceptualizations and clinical observations, empirical findings consistently show that dark traits are related to empathy deficits [22, 23]; however, the associations between specific forms of empathy and dark traits are not so consistent. Furthermore, there are indications that there are individuals high both on empathy and dark traits [24], and that individuals with elevated dark traits can be empathic in certain circumstances [25, 26]. Thus, let us closely explore the findings on relations between dark personality traits and specific forms of empathy.

2. Dark traits and specific forms of empathy

Albeit there are different conceptualizations of empathy, there is a consensus that it comprises two components: a cognitive (i.e. the cognitive assessment of affective experiences of others) and affective one (i.e. sharing and adequately responding to affective experiences of others), which have been confirmed in neuropsychological research [27].

In line with the callous, manipulative, and exploitative nature of dark personalities, it may be assumed that individuals high on dark personality traits should have a good understanding of the affective experiences of others (i.e. have high cognitive empathy) which enables them to manipulate and exploit others, but at the same time, they should not care about the feelings of others (i.e. have low affective empathy) to behave in such a manner. Indeed, research consistently points to deficits in affective empathy in individuals with pronounced dark personality traits [23, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34], with psychopathy showing the strongest negative relationship with this form of empathy, followed by Machiavellianism and sadism. However, the situation is not so clear when it comes to cognitive empathy. Namely, while some studies indicate that at least one of the dark traits is linked to impaired cognitive empathy [23, 35, 36], others point to a positive relationship of at least one of the dark traits with cognitive empathy [23, 24, 32, 34], with narcissism most often being that trait.

Given the narcissistic tendency of overestimating their abilities to read and understand the emotions of others [37], a question arises is the positive link between cognitive empathy and narcissism due to this tendency. However, findings are showing that narcissism is also positively associated with emotion recognition tasks [34, 38] that are considered closely related to cognitive empathy, indicating that narcissism is in fact linked to higher cognitive empathy. The plausible explanation of this positive link is that the narcissistic need for admiration and reinforcement of their grandiose view of themselves requires a better understanding of how others see them, implying a need for a slightly superior cognitive empathy.

Similar considerations regarding the empirically observed positive link between narcissism and cognitive empathy can be found in the proposed criteria of narcissistic personality disorder in the alternative DSM-5 model for personality disorders, which states that narcissistic personality disorder can be characterized by being “excessively attuned to reactions of others, but only if perceived as relevant to self” ([4], p. 767). On the other hand, the antisocial personality disorder in this model can be characterized by a “lack of concern for feelings, needs, or suffering of others; lack of remorse after hurting or mistreating another” ([4], p. 764), indicating more serious empathic impairments associated with this disorder. Indeed, psychopathy, observed in the Dark Triad constellation, exhibits the strongest negative relations with adverse psychosocial outcomes, such as emotional deficits (i.e. lack of empathy), aggression, impulsivity, and interpersonal problems (see [39]). Comparingly, some studies on moderation between empathy and psychopathy indicated that, if trait psychopathy is high, then individuals with higher levels of cognitive empathy are more likely to engage in aggressive behavior such as trolling [31, 36]. Moreover, there are findings that the lack of cognitive empathy mediates the relationship between psychopathy and specific forms of prosocial behavior (for details see [40]), highlighting the importance of the psychopathy-empathy relationship.

As one of the characteristics of Machiavellianism is the use of strategic manipulation, it is assumed that Machiavellianism is linked to higher cognitive empathy. However, some studies failed to find any connection between cognitive empathy and Machiavellianism (e.g. [41, 42]). One of the reasons for inconsistent findings of previous studies may lay in using different measures of empathy, reflecting somewhat different conceptualizations of this construct, such as the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI [43], defining empathy as reactions of one individual to the observed experiences of another [44]), Basic Empathy Scale (BES [45], conceptualizing empathy as the understanding and sharing in another’s emotional state or context), or Empathy Quotient (EQ [46], which conceptualizes empathy as the ability to recognize and understand the thoughts and feelings of others, as well as to respond to others’ thoughts and feelings with appropriate emotion). Thus, Turner et al. [32] examined the relationship of Dark Triad traits with cognitive and affective empathy using multiple questionnaires for both empathy (i.e. BES, EQ , and one more independent measure) and the dark traits and through simultaneous consideration of all constructs in a single latent variable model, and on a large sample (over 1000) of participants. Their results indicated that dark traits are related more to affective than to cognitive empathy: all three dark traits were related to lower levels of affective empathy, but this relationship was weaker for narcissism, while cognitive empathy was positively related to narcissism and Machiavellianism, but unrelated to psychopathy. Results regarding sadism are following the same pattern, with sadism being more strongly related to affective than cognitive empathy [3, 31, 36].

It should be noted that, although the Dark Tetrad traits share a common core of callousness/low empathy, due to the unique features of each of the traits, the manifestation of this characteristic could be different among each trait [7], as well as the psychological processes beneath the exploitative behavior common for the dark traits [18]. More specifically, individuals high on narcissism might lack empathy for those they step on in their quest for public admiration, and the exploitation of others may be a result of their self-centeredness. Individuals high on psychopathy impulsively reach for what they want, caring little if others will get hurt along the way. Individuals high on Machiavellianism may take care while taking advantage of others and exhibit interpersonal indifference if someone interferes with their goals. Finally, individuals high on everyday sadism will seek opportunities to observe or even induce suffering in others.

Furthermore, a recent meta-analytical finding that empathy and aggression are, despite the assumptions regarding the importance of empathy for aggressive behavior, virtually unrelated [47], indicated that current conceptions of affective empathy could be too narrow, failing to capture the full range of the construct. Thus, Vachon and Lynam [48] proposed a new measure of empathy: Affective and Cognitive Measure of Empathy (ACME). ACME conceptualizes cognitive empathy as empathic accuracy (i.e. the ability to detect and understand what others are feeling), and affective empathy distinguishes between affective resonance, conceptualized as most traditional measures of affective empathy (i.e. empathic concern, sympathy, compassion, involving an emotional response in the observer congruent in valence to the target) and affective dissonance, conceptualized as the experience of a contradictory emotional response (e.g. taking pleasure in others’ pain or feeling annoyed with others’ happiness). In line with previous findings linking schadenfreude (i.e. pleasure and joy derived from another person’s misfortune) with dark personality traits [49, 50], dark traits indeed generally exhibit stronger relations to affective dissonance than resonance [48, 51, 52]. The extension of the range of affective empathy from high levels of resonance (i.e. empathy) to low levels of resonance (i.e. indifference and callousness) to include the dissonant responses is especially important for the dark traits research. Therefore, including this aspect of empathy in future research is advisable to shed more light on the relationship between dark traits and specific forms of empathy.

Another problem with research on the relationship between empathy and dark personality traits is that most of the previously described findings were obtained using exclusively self-report measures of empathy. Thus, it is advisable to also include some other empathy measures in future research, such as behavioral (e.g. picture viewing tasks and stories [53]), physiological (e.g. heart rate, electroencephalogram (EEG)), and/or neuroscientific measures (e.g. magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)). Namely, including different modalities of empathy measures could provide a comprehensive approach to empathy assessment and enable finer insights into the relationship between dark traits and empathy. In fact, some of the studies [25, 26] using the multi-modal approach to empathy provided valuable insights that will be discussed in detail in the next section.

As there are sex differences in both empathy and the dark traits, with women scoring higher on especially affective empathy [54], and men scoring higher on the dark traits [39, 55], some studies further investigated gender differences in the relations between dark traits and empathy. It has been shown that empathy mediates sex differences in the Dark Triad traits, indicating that underlying sex differences in the Dark Triad traits may reflect individual differences in empathy [22, 35]. Furthermore, the relations between Dark Triad traits seem to be stronger in women than in men, especially for narcissism [22, 56], while the relationship between empathy and psychopathy seems to be stronger in men [22]. The finding that the link between the Dark Triad and limited empathy might be primarily through narcissism in women and psychopathy in men suggests different implications for the development of the dark traits and limited empathy in men and women and links to different outcomes. For example, men with limited empathy and high on psychopathy may pursue risky lifestyle and opportunism, while women high on narcissism may pursue parasitic relationship styles. Thus, it is important to take sex differences into account in future research on the relationship between dark traits and empathy, above and beyond merely controlling for sex, in order to get a better insight into the complexity of these relations.

A further problem with previous research regarding the relationship between dark personality traits and empathy is related to neglecting the multidimensionality of each of the dark traits. Namely, each of the dark traits is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct: Machiavellianism comprises a cynical worldview, manipulative behavior, and disregard for morality [8], psychopathy comprises cunningness, lack of remorse, impulsive, and antisocial lifestyle [9], and narcissism exhibitionism, interpersonal dominance, and need for attention [10], while sadism can have direct and vicarious forms (see [11]), and there are findings on different relations between different dimensions of each of the dark traits and different forms of empathy [36, 57, 58, 59]. For example, vulnerable narcissism (characterized by interpersonal coldness, hostility, egocentricity, negative emotions, need for recognition, and entitlement) was negatively related to all aspects of empathy, while grandiose narcissism (characterized by immodesty, self-assurance, exhibitionism, dominance, and aggression; see [9] for a more detailed distinction between these two forms of narcissism) was linked to higher empathy and perspective taking [59]. Similarly, there are findings indicating that Factor 2 psychopathy (characterized by erratic lifestyle and antisocial behavior) is linked to deficits in both cognitive and affective empathy, while Factor 1 psychopathy (characterized by interpersonal manipulation and shallow affectivity; for a more detailed distinction between these two factors see [10]) was linked to higher cognitive empathy [58]. These findings corroborate the general notion that it is advisable to consider the multidimensionality of dark traits in investigating their relations with other constructs [60].

3. Can dark personalities be empathic?

As described earlier, empirical findings largely point to emphatic deficits linked to dark personality traits. However, the question is do individuals scoring high on dark personality traits lack the capacity (ability) or the disposition (trait) to empathize? Kajonius and Björkman [30] found a very strong negative relationship between Dark Triad traits and dispositional trait-based empathy, and the absence of any relationship with ability-based empathy, indicating that individuals with pronounced dark traits possess a normal ability for empathy but have a low inclination to be empathic.

One interesting paper [25] investigated whether narcissists can empathize with a person in distress in different contexts. In a series of three studies, it was shown that higher narcissism is linked to lower both self-reported empathy and emphatic autonomic arousal (i.e. heart rate) in the context of different vignettes (presented as a written text, video, or audio-recording). However, if instructed to take a perspective of the target person, individuals scoring high on narcissism were capable of reporting higher empathy for a target person and responding to another’s distress with the same level of autonomic arousal as individuals scoring low on narcissism.

Similarly, another interesting study [26] used fMRI to investigate vicarious representations (i.e. neural activations in brain regions normally associated with feeling specific emotions that are triggered when witnessing the emotions of others, while witnessing what others do and sense recruits one’s own motor and somatosensory cortices) in male psychopaths while watching video clips of two hands in different interactions (neutral, love, pain, and exclusion). The results showed that, although the brain areas associated with vicarious activations to hand actions (i.e. pre-motor cortices), sensations (i.e. primary and secondary somatosensory cortices), and emotions (i.e. anterior cingulate and insula cortices) were under-activated in psychopathy compared to the control group, group differences attributable to vicarious activations were significantly reduced when psychopathic participants were instructed to empathize with the actors in the videos.

Both studies indicate that, although individuals with pronounced dark traits do not seem to lack the ability to empathize, they do not have a spontaneous emphatic reaction to others’ distress. Similarly, there are some indications that in Machiavellianism lack of empathy might be due to a lack of motivation to be empathic [42, 61]. It should be noted that, although these studies included only one of the dark traits, due to their common core of callousness [13, 14], empirical overlap [39], and similar nomological networks [60, 62], it could be assumed that the similar principles would work for all the traits. More specifically, it seems that the mere instruction to take the perspective of a suffering person evokes physiological emphatic responses in individuals with pronounced dark traits reducing the deficits in empathy and has the potential to move dark personalities to empathize in the same manner as individuals low on dark traits. Thus, interventions targeting perspective-taking practice, emphasizing its value, and making this skill intrinsically appealing to also enhance the motivation to be empathic seems to be a promising path to boost empathy in dark personalities.

Finally, a recent finding identified that there are individuals high both on dark traits and empathy, called the Dark Empaths [24]. On a large sample of nearly 1000 individuals, the researchers using the latent profile analysis identified four groups: standard Dark Triad group with high dark traits and low empathy, Typical group with average dark traits and empathy, Dark Empath group with higher empathy alongside high dark traits, and Empath group with low dark traits and high empathy. Dark Empaths had a greater representation of men than women, showed higher extraversion than all the other groups, and used more malicious humor and guilt induction than non-dark groups. Compared to the Dark Triad group, Dark Empaths were higher on agreeableness and grandiosity, lower on exploitativeness and interpersonal aggression, and had better well-being (i.e. lower anxiety), suggesting a more adaptive level in psychosocial functioning. However, the Dark Empath group remained more antagonistic, neurotic, stressed, and self-critical, compared to non-dark groups. Albeit compelling, these findings need to be replicated and extended to distinguish between specific forms of empathy, which is a work in progress but has the potential to shift our understanding of empathy in the context of dark traits.

4. Conclusion

Empathy deficits have been consistently linked to dark personality traits (i.e. Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism) both theoretically and empirically, and the findings point to stronger links between dark traits and deficits in affective empathy compared to cognitive empathy [32, 36]. However, due to specific features of each of the dark traits, manifestations of empathic deficits in Dark Tetrad traits may be different. Moreover, there are indicators of gender differences in links between the dark traits and empathy [22, 35, 56], indicating different developmental paths of the dark traits and limited empathy, and links to different outcomes in men and women.

The main issues in previous research on the relations between dark personality traits and empathy include problems with used measures of empathy and relying solely on self-reported measures. Thus, future research in this area should focus on combining self-report and other empathy measures (i.e. behavioral, physiological, and/or neuroscientific measures). Finally, given that individuals with pronounced dark personality traits do not lack the ability to empathize [30], but rather do not have a spontaneous emphatic reaction to others’ distress [25, 26], interventions targeting perspective-taking practice seem to be a promising path to boost empathy in dark personalities.