How dark personalities gain workplace influence: A replication and extension

Abstract

More research is needed on the ways Dark Triad (DT) personality traits (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism) negatively influence the workplace. This study examines the association of soft and hard social influence tactics with DT traits by conducting a direct replication of Jonason, Slomsky, and Partyka (2012), which used the Dirty Dozen to measure DT traits. We also extended their study by including a contemporary measure of the DT, the Short Dark Triad. We tested our hypotheses that, 1) each DT traits significantly predict at least one of the workplace tactic styles (soft or hard); 2) The gender of participants does not significantly explain the variance in either soft or hard tactics after controlling for the mediating effect of DT composite. Across two studies, the results largely replicated previous conclusions and supported our hypotheses with some notable differences. Machiavellianism was associated with hard tactics, but not soft tactics. Narcissism was associated with both soft and hard tactics. Like Machiavellianism, psychopathy was associated with hard tactics, but not soft tactics, however, individuals high in psychopathy utilized more threats and punishment and less charm than those high in Machiavellianism. We discuss the implications of the observed differences between the two DT measures.