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Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed?

psyche.co

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Re: Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed?

#31

Post by bonoboTP »

adnzzzzZ wrote: post #7

>Overall, individuals with dark traits engage in more counterproductive work behaviour, such as theft and abusive supervision. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they don’t end up with higher average incomes than their peers with light personalities. >The key factor here seems to be empathy: the capacity to resonate with – and understand the perspective of – the emotional experiences of others. Individuals with light personalit…

Also, narcissistsic sociopaths can have a high capacity for empathy in the sense of knowing what others feel and think while also ruthlessly manipulating, being two-faced based on who is present and the gaslighting others when these obvious differences are brought up (differences like switching the entire tone of voice and mannerisms at the flip of a switch, as if it was new person, just to suck up to or put down people depending on their goals).

Working with such people can be a nightmare because they appear so charming outward to powerful people in decision making positions, while being cruel and sadistic to others, leaving very little for these people to do because the higher ups love the individual and cannot imagine what is hidden from them.

Re: Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed?

#32

Post by markus_zhang »

There are a lot of those dark traits out there, and we have to segment them. Just from my exp, I see more dark traits on successful people, albeit it doesn't necessarily mean that people with dark traits are more likely to succeed. Can't say if it's universal though.

I'd also argue that dark traits linked to social success are more or less born, or heavily influenced by childhood exp (which is essentially "born"), so it's kind of difficult to "pick" it up after reaching adulthood.

Re: Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed?

#33

Post by bagacrap »

sadmann1 wrote: post #20

Highly intelligent people are highly adaptable. If the incentives set by the system favor certain traits deemed as dark there will be a non zero percentage of people developing these traits. Especially in highly competitive fields. For example is it a dark trait to work at the minimum required level in a company while spending the time gained to sharpen my skills so I get a 50% salary increase changing jobs instead o…

this might be a reflection of dark traits if you're blatantly harming your coworkers, say, by doing this. But otherwise I'd say no, it's not evidence of a dark trait to work at the minimum required level. You don't owe a corporate entity more than that.

Re: Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed?

#34

Post by rienbdj »

The dream of many a disgruntled intellectual teen is to have a dark personality, yet be so good at the hard skills that people put up with it.

The most unproductive form this can take is when dark personality traits are seen as a signal of brilliance... “Well if they’re such an asshole they must be good at their job or they would have been shown the door already”.

See also: the idolisation of Rick from Rick and Morty

Re: Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed?

#35

Post by spanktheuser »

Be careful extrapolating to the individual from studies such as these, as the study environments control for context while the real world does not.

For example, I worked with an developer who I’d consider low on agreeableness. She functioned extremely well in a seed stage startup as 1 of 2 engineers. She was willing to fight for the right decision no matter what and didn’t care how people felt about that.

As the startup scaled, however, her disregard for the feelings of others hampered her effectiveness. Her engineering team became one of the lower performing in the organization.

Did her personality help or hinder the organization? Did it contribute or detract from her individual goals and overall happiness?

Yes.

Re: Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed?

#36

Post by lcall »

If one defines success as true happiness that lasts, no.

If you want caregivers and to be around people who like you and actually care while you are aging and then old, I would say strongly that it is better to practice treating others the way you would want to be treated, with honesty and kindness. Or if you want to be around that kind of people (I hope everyone would, upon reflection). Or if you believe in God (for which I have many reasons that I find compelling, even "proof" sufficient to my personal satisfaction), or if one wants to play the safe side of Pascal's wager (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager).

Money is a poor companion compared to trustworthy, unselfish, kind people who know that you in turn can be trusted. (And my experiences with social security and medicare, as well as everything I have read or studied in years, including the outcomes of communisms, family travel and degrees, language study, etc etc, strongly bear this out--we don't want to rely just on institutions to care for us if we can have people who know us and who care, and whom we have trained by our example over a long time to be caring and have a service-oriented mindset of actual considerate love for others. For example, close and extended family, neighbors, and strangers. There is no real substitute.

Stalin, for one example, had "success" in terms of power, prestige, and something like adoration of the masses. But if what I read, as I recall, is correct, he died neglected and miserable in a pool of his own waste, surrounded by false friends who cared only when fear required it. And either way, I think the concept could be obvious.

If one just wants pleasure, power, and attention during your years of best health, and to fade & die after you can't maintain it, and thinks life is just the law of the jungle (dominate until you are dominated, rule or ruin?), then maybe you would consider that honesty and kindness don't matter. I strongly recommend honesty and kindness, treating others the way you would want to be treated, and a clear conscience for a truly happy life. Much more could be said. :)

Re: Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed?

#37

Post by bumby »

pizza234 wrote: post #6

The test itself is very well done - they try to get people to respond precisely, but checking attention, and asking multiple times questions about the same concept. However, the article has a very fundamental flaw: > Unfortunately, most people with extreme levels of dark personality traits don’t want to change who they are. Despite not being particularly happy with their lives The test doesn't deal with "happiness" a…

I've found Daniel Khaneman's definition of happiness being useful here.

He divides happiness into two parts: a "experiential" happiness and a "reflecting" happiness.

For the sake of the discussion and acknowledging I have zero insight into his personality, someone like Steve Jobs could be low in "experiential" happiness (seemingly endlessly frustrated in the present moment) and high on the "reflecting" happiness ("look at all the great, transformational things I've brought to the world")

Re: Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed?

#39

Post by mam2 »

playpause wrote: post #28
mam2 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always found these kind of studies bullshit: the worse serial killers and pedophiles were sometimes described as "nice" and "charming" people. I don't think it's accurate to make a clear line between "real sociopathy" and "normal people" based on your behavior. Everyone has personal goals, interests, (whether good or bad) and try to have what he think is the the optimal behavior (wether good or bad). The real quest…

Extreme outliers aren't useful indicators when trying to understand general trends.

It's only outliers if you think "most" sociopath "should" look like it. The truth is you don't know and I actually think most sociopath looks totally normal.

Re: Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed?

#40

Post by mcguire »

alexpetralia wrote: post #12
adnzzzzZ wrote: post #7

>Overall, individuals with dark traits engage in more counterproductive work behaviour, such as theft and abusive supervision. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they don’t end up with higher average incomes than their peers with light personalities. >The key factor here seems to be empathy: the capacity to resonate with – and understand the perspective of – the emotional experiences of others. Individuals with light personalit…

Does high agreeableness necessarily translate into more empathy, or vice versa? I define empathy as "knowing your customer" (whoever it may be). You can be very attuned to this whether you are agreeable or disagreeable, no? (Perhaps this is not a widely accepted definition of empathy, and that definition instead somehow indicates "being nice"? I don't think being nice/agreeable necessarily helps you know who you're s…

"I define empathy as "knowing your customer" (whoever it may be). You can be very attuned to this whether you are agreeable or disagreeable, no?"

That is a very odd definition of empathy; it seems to imply that you are trying to sell them something, that you want something from them.

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