Examining the Deviation From Balanced Time Perspective in the Dark Triad Throughout Adulthood.

Béla Birkás,András Matuz,Árpád Csathó

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01046

Abstract

Individuals who score high on Dark Triad (DT) personality traits (i.e., Machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism and subclinical psychopathy) have been found to prefer a fast life strategy with enhanced motivation for immediate resource acquisition and short-term benefits. In line with these points, recent studies have found evidence showing that DT traits are associated with a biased, strongly present-oriented time perspective. In the current study, we aimed to examine whether the temporal attitude of individuals high in DT is deviant from a balanced time perspective (BTP) to a significant extent. To achieve this aim, we applied two operationalizations published in earlier studies to quantify BTP: the Deviation from Balanced Time Perspective coefficient (DBTP), calculated as the difference between individuals’ time perception and the optimal time perspective, as well as the person-oriented approach of identifying groups of individuals with similar time perception. Importantly, the age of participants (N = 346) covered a long and continuous period of adulthood—from the young adulthood to the elderly—in order to examine the moderating effect of age on the association of DT and BTP. Machiavellianism and psychopathy were both found to be clearly deviant from a BTP. In contrast, higher scores on narcissism were positively associated with a BTP profile. The DBTP analysis, however, suggested that this beneficial effect of narcissism was only prevalent among the elderly individuals.

Highlights

Very soon after birth, time becomes one of the most important decision markers used to make either implicit or explicit strategic decisions about how we organize and prioritize future goals (Boniwell and Zimbardo, 2015)
The analysis revealed that deviation from an optimal balanced time perspective profile (i.e., Deviation from Balanced Time Perspective coefficient (DBTP)) is significantly predicted by each of the three Dark Triad traits
We investigated whether the temporal attitudes of individuals scoring high on the Dark Triad (DT) traits were significantly different from an optimal, balanced profile (BTP)

Summary

Introduction

Time becomes one of the most important decision markers used to make either implicit or explicit strategic decisions about how we organize and prioritize future goals (Boniwell and Zimbardo, 2015). One well-known psychological concept dealing with variability in views about the past, present and future is that of time perspectives (TP). An extensively investigated model of TP was developed by Zimbardo and Boyd (1999) and operationalized in the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI). The model conceptualizes the psychological dimension of time as a result of cognitive operations by which personal and social experiences over time are automatically enrolled into time frames of the past, present and future (Zimbardo and Boyd, 1999). The ZTPI defines TP in terms of five factors, where each factor reflects a different view of time: past-negative, past-positive, present-fatalistic, presenthedonistic, and future-oriented. The attitudes toward both the past and the present frames of time are assessed by two subscales addressing positive and negative views about the past

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