Situational peer preferences within the dark triad and light three: peer selection and ranking

Abstract

The Dark Triad is a trio of socially aversive sub-clinical personality traits consisting of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. The Light Three is a grouping of three prosocial sub-clinical personality traits including empathy, altruism, and compassion. Benchmarks of these personality traits are their unique HEXACO profiles. The HEXACO model of personality structure includes six domains: Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, eXtraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience. Previous research has explored the implications that these personality traits have on various contexts such as employment, friendship, and romantic relationships, as well as assortative mating preferences. The purpose of this investigation was to explore peer preference as a function of personality and biological sex in the contexts of friendship, teamwork, and financial trust. A secondary focus of this study was to further validate the Dark Triad and Light Three to support that these are unique and independent concepts. [...]