Two decades ago, Paulhus and Williams (2002) called attention to a trio of personality traits - Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy – also known as the Dark Triad of personality. Since then, these three personality traits have attracted a lot of empirical attention, with much of the research focusing on establishing the profiles of socially aversive personalities and investigating how they are related to a variety of behaviors, such as workplace behaviour and interpersonal relationships. Researchers have found that the dark traits are associated with a host of undesirable behaviour and are rapidly becoming a new focus of study in psychology.
But what about those who are at the other end of the spectrum? The answer to this question is precisely what was investigated by a study published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology in 2019. Scott Barry Kaufman, a psychologist at Columbia University, along with his co-authors recruited 1,158 people from four demographically diverse samples and asked them a series of questions. These participants were recruited from crowdsourcing websites M-Turk and Prolific Academic with the restriction that the participants live in the U.S. and were above the age of 18. In the four studies, most of the participants identified as white, with the rest of the sample mostly identifying as either hispanic, latino, black, or Asian. They developed a 12-item light triad scale, which tapped three ‘light’ traits- Kantianism, Humanism, and Faith in Humanity. Kantianism was based on philosopher Immanuel Kant’s second formulation of his categorical imperative: “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person, or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end. Humanism means valuing the dignity and worth of each person. Faith in Humanity refers to a belief in the fundamental goodness of others.
So, is the dark side related to the light side? Turns out that they are more complementary than contrasting. When the correlations among the dark and the light triad personality traits were examined, they were found to be negatively correlated. In other words, those scoring higher on the light triad tend to score lower on the dark triad and vice versa. However, they were not completely contrary to each other. We all have a mix of both the light and the dark traits. They also investigated correlations between the light triad and the dark triad and a wide range of variables, such as psychological needs, values, and character strengths, among others and concluded that people who are high on the light triad traits tend to be more agreeable, compassionate, empathic, more satisfied with life, and believe in the good of humanity.
In general, the light triad was related to being motivated by intimacy and self-transcendence. Such a person will most likely gravitate towards helping professions. They termed the high scorers on the light triad as being “everyday saints.”
However, being an everyday saint does not necessarily mean that it is all good, just like scoring high on the dark triad does not necessarily mean that it is all bad. The light triad was found to be negatively correlated with motives for achievement and self-enhancement. This means that someone scoring high on the light triad scale would have a tough time reaching self-actualization and putting their needs before others. Despite being associated with good qualities, the light triad is not associated with bravery or assertiveness. Such people don’t tend to put themselves forward to offer an idea, opinion, reason, or confront an aggressor. Further, the light triad is associated with feelings of guilt, particularly survivor’s guilt (i.e., feeling that they don’t deserve something that they have achieved) and omnipotent responsibility guilt (i.e., exaggerated sense of responsibility and concern for the happiness and well-being of loved ones). In other words, high scorers on the light triad experience guilt all the time, which can be damaging.
What about those who are not high scorers on the light triad scale? According to Kaufman, there are ways to enhance light triad characteristics by enhancing characteristics of the quiet ego, namely perspective-taking, inclusive identity, detached awareness, and growth-mindedness, which they found to be associated with the light triad. Studies have also shown that there are exercises to enhance these characteristics.
Of course, there are limitations to be considered, but it is a great first step that has paved the way for other researchers to build on this and delve into the lighter and better side of people.
Kimaya Khanolkar
