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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?

#91

Post by marcus_holmes »

fairity wrote: post #81

> Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed? I think these studies are all significantly flawed because successful people with dark personality traits learn to cover up their dark traits. As a result, the cohort of people with "dark traits" in these observational studies will inevitably be skewed towards those who are less successful/intelligent/adaptable. Possessing "dark traits" basically means…

Morality is evolved. Humans are social animals, and we have evolved a set of rules to guide human communities by. We call this morality (there's an interesting discussion about biblical/religious morality vs atheist morality, but it's interesting because of how similar those moralities are).

If your goals never align with those of your community/organisation, and you don't need the community/organisation to help you succeed in them, then ignoring morality will help you succeed in your goals.

But if your goals are aligned with your community/organisation, then morality is actually a great guide as to "behaviour that has been proven to work well". This, I think, is what the article was talking about.

As a manager, my experience is that dark traits are always a negative for the organisation. The goals of the individual and the organisation soon diverge, and the goals of the individual take precedence for them. Managing them so their needs stay in line with the plan is an extra burden, and you never know when they're off planning something evil.

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

#92

Post by grugagag »

vorpalhex wrote: post #87
fairity wrote: post #81

> Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed? I think these studies are all significantly flawed because successful people with dark personality traits learn to cover up their dark traits. As a result, the cohort of people with "dark traits" in these observational studies will inevitably be skewed towards those who are less successful/intelligent/adaptable. Possessing "dark traits" basically means…

If only HN had a gold star type thing, instead you'll have to settle for being included in my notes. > having greater optionality in your actions is likely to lead to a more optimal path towards your goal. One of the frequent issues I hit with other people is that they will "block off" a choice before actually evaluating it. They will, for instance, refuse to bring up that they have another job offer in a salary nego…

> "they need me and the company might fail if I leave" Isn't this also some kind of hero mentality that these people enjoy being part of? Eventually they realize it doesn't pay bills but while it does make them feel great and that's the temporary payoff. We all learn from our mistakes. It might also be genuine kinship with their coworkers and this is exactly where the leadership of the said company is extremely smart and evil at the same time: they know how to attract intelligent benevolent nerds to exploit and they know that they'll eventually smarten up and leave but the world is large, There's a sucker born every minute

All in all, the revolving door and the high churn rate won't make a big dent for the company.

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

#93

Post by ChainOfFools »

rienbdj wrote: post #34

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

This is also the axis, personified by the title character, around which the story arcs are bent in House. House is meant as a modern day reboot of Sherlock Holmes, who was written to a similarly extreme NPD template.

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

#94

Post by nefitty »

stakkur wrote: post #48

'If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometime…

I don’t believe in free will. It has been a much different experience than shedding my belief in God. When I was young I used to “sense” someone always watching me, to the point of feeling shame in natural situations like bathing. One day the feeling just faded, and it was a palpable change in my perception of life.

With the absence of free will, that intuition has been extremely difficult for me to hold onto. It is fleeting, even after hundreds of pages of books reiterating the fact. To approximate the intuition, when I see someone in a morally questionable situation or experiencing sheer bad luck, I try to remember to tell myself “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

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

#95

Post by User23 »

dcolkitt wrote: post #24
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…

> but its been shown pretty consistently that higher agreeableness (more empathy) has a negative effect Be careful conflating agreeableness with empathy. In Big Five OCEAN, empathy is a sub-facet of agreeableness(A), but not the only one. Other sub-facets of agreeableness are conflict-avoidance, modesty, compliance, and naive trust in others. Intuitively, it would seem to me those are more important contributor to su…

Sociopaths are great at empathy. Empathy is the ability to observe and understand others emotions without actually connecting. It’s absolutely essential to be a successful dark triad tape.

Sympathy is the “light” counterpart, where you actually emotionally resonate with the other person. Obviously this makes nasty behavior less attractive since you feel the emotional effects too.

And now you know why corporate psychobabble always goes on about user empathy.

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

#96

Post by Barrin92 »

fairity wrote: post #81

> Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed? I think these studies are all significantly flawed because successful people with dark personality traits learn to cover up their dark traits. As a result, the cohort of people with "dark traits" in these observational studies will inevitably be skewed towards those who are less successful/intelligent/adaptable. Possessing "dark traits" basically means…

>I think these studies are all significantly flawed because successful people with dark personality traits learn to cover up their dark traits.

If those people have to cover up their dark personality traits then that's a pretty good indication that the results of the study is correct, namely that dark traits are disadvantageous.

>is you aren't limited by a moral compass

Moral values don't limit you in a negative sense of the term, that's why we evolved to have them in the first place. If they were useless, you'd see a lot more psychopaths around. It sounds like you're thinking of morality in religious terms, as some sort of negative worldly thing that we ought to do despite of consequences. In reality moral decision making is a sort of game that produces rules which are mutually beneficial and create long term stable social relationships.

>After all, having greater optionality in your actions is likely to lead to a more optimal path towards your goal.

No, not in the long term. Absence of moral values is as risky as a society without a rule of law. 'Greater optionality' just leads to maladjustment which over time fires back both on society, and then on the individual in question, which is why people with dark personality traits are much more at risk to not hold a job, be drug dependent, in damaging relationships, or engage in crime.

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

#97

Post by dj_mc_merlin »

fairity wrote: post #81

> Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed? I think these studies are all significantly flawed because successful people with dark personality traits learn to cover up their dark traits. As a result, the cohort of people with "dark traits" in these observational studies will inevitably be skewed towards those who are less successful/intelligent/adaptable. Possessing "dark traits" basically means…

Studying history will teach you this. The most successful leaders go around committing morally ambiguous but advatangeous acts that can be spun into a good story (or at least a story the general population at the time would've bought into). Sometimes just straight up atrocities if they can get away with it.

It is not much different today. The US has a department of Defense, which flies death robots around in impoverished areas. It's just optics and always has been.

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

#98

Post by frongpik »

kjlkjoxcvxch wrote: post #57
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…

Using a throwaway for obvious reasons. I've been diagnosed as having narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) by several doctors so maybe I can shed some light on this. NPD is the inability to generate and/or experience internal validation. It is the lack of internal voice saying "good job". NPD is not self-aggrandizement although that is a common coping mechanism used to deal with the underlying disorder. I don't thi…

I also use throwaways, but to give unpopular advice. I'd say that youre probably alright, but your state indicates an objective reality which is wasting time on things deemed pointless by your ego or soul, whatever you call it. Whenever we engage in such pointless activities, e.g. chasing money, our egos lose interest that feels as the unexplainable loss of life satisfaction. Activities that are deemed important by our egos are usually considered unimportant by our today's society's. The famous example is meditation: it seems meaningless, but for whatever reason it instantly brings the ego's attention and that feels as an unexplainable satisfaction in achieving something important, even though you can't explain whats being achieved. It's like lighting up an internal candle. Other activities are research of certain usually abstract topics, but also giving to others (not just money, but also time or knowledge). I'd recommend studying the bright side of occultism, and start with a short essay called "light on the path" (and to dodge the wrath of the orthodox HN community, I'm using a throwaway account). That essay has a few important references that will eventually lead you to less known books by Plato, Newton and many others. You'll laugh at the idea that Plato was just a philosopher. By that time you wont have lack of internal self validation.

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

#99

Post by dweekly »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #97
fairity wrote: post #81

> Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed? I think these studies are all significantly flawed because successful people with dark personality traits learn to cover up their dark traits. As a result, the cohort of people with "dark traits" in these observational studies will inevitably be skewed towards those who are less successful/intelligent/adaptable. Possessing "dark traits" basically means…

Studying history will teach you this. The most successful leaders go around committing morally ambiguous but advatangeous acts that can be spun into a good story (or at least a story the general population at the time would've bought into). Sometimes just straight up atrocities if they can get away with it. It is not much different today. The US has a department of Defense, which flies death robots around in impoveri…

If we had an actual Department of Defense, we wouldn't need Homeland Security. What we have is a relabeled War Department but that would have sounded silly after a war.

To wit, winning is all about framing the argument in the right way. Victors get to rewrite history not just because they won but because we want a world in which good guys do well.

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

#100

Post by vmception »

vorpalhex wrote: post #87
fairity wrote: post #81

> Are people with dark personality traits more likely to succeed? I think these studies are all significantly flawed because successful people with dark personality traits learn to cover up their dark traits. As a result, the cohort of people with "dark traits" in these observational studies will inevitably be skewed towards those who are less successful/intelligent/adaptable. Possessing "dark traits" basically means…

If only HN had a gold star type thing, instead you'll have to settle for being included in my notes. > having greater optionality in your actions is likely to lead to a more optimal path towards your goal. One of the frequent issues I hit with other people is that they will "block off" a choice before actually evaluating it. They will, for instance, refuse to bring up that they have another job offer in a salary nego…

I tell those kind of people that they are single handedly contributing to a (perceived or real) wage gap.

I coach women that are afraid of being perceived as too assertive in their own organization that their competition got kicked out of organizations for being too cocky until finally landing a high level position where they needed to “make the tough decisions”. The competition doesn't care about losing or being married to a single organization.

This all ties into the breadth of choices some people are willing to perceive and entertain.

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