Creatures of the night - people who favour the evening score higher on Dark Triad personality traits

There are countless examples in nature of biological adaptations going hand in hand with either a nocturnal or diurnal (day-time) lifestyle. For instance, cats have reflective lenses allowing better vision in low light; chimps have colour vision which is useful for spotting fruit in daylight. In a new paper Peter Jonason and his colleagues provide evidence that in humans certain personality types act as a form of adaptation that correlates with a preference for daily or nightly living (a person's "chronotype"). Specifically the researchers have shown that people with a preference for the evening and night-time tend to score highly on the "Dark Triad" of personality traits - Machiavellianism, psychopathy and narcissism. Jonason and his colleagues surveyed 263 students online (average age 24; there were 74 men) using a narcissism scale (participants rated their agreement with statements like: "I have a natural talent for influencing people"); a psychopathy scale (e.g. "I think I could beat a lie detector"), a Machiavellianism scale (e.g. "it is hard to get ahead without cutting corners here and there") and chronotype questionnaire (participants answered questions like "During the first half hour after you wake up in the morning, how do you feel?"). Across the sample, average Dark Triad trait scores correlated negatively with chronotype scores (r was -.14, p<.001 where -1 would be a perfect correlation). That is, the darker a person's personality score, the more they tende...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Source Type: blogs