Shedding light on the Light Triad: Further evidence on structural, construct, and predictive validity of the Light Triad

Abstract

The concept of Light Triad composed of Faith in Humanity, Humanism, and Kantianism, which describes loving and beneficent orientation towards others has been recently proposed as an antithesis to the Dark Triad concept of malevolent personality. Previous studies have shown these three traits are relatively distinct, that the Light Triad is largely irreducible to both the Dark Triad and basic personality traits, and that this construct predicts various growth-oriented and self-transcending outcomes. Two studies presented here aim to cross-validate the structural composition of this novel construct, test its irreducibility to the broader models of dark traits (Dark Tetrad) and personality (HEXACO + psychoticism), and examine its incremental value beyond dark traits in the prediction of social worldviews, militant extremist mindset, and conspiracism. Study 1 corroborated previous findings of three correlated yet distinct light traits that are related but not reducible to the Dark Tetrad. Study 2 has shown that the Light Triad is reducible to broad personality domains no more than the dark traits are, although the light traits, in contrast to the dark ones, proved to be poor predictors of adverse socio-psychological “outcomes”. Measurement and conceptual issues and limitations of the Light Triad are discussed.