Schmitt Helena S, Sindermann Cornelia, Li Mei, Ma Yina, Kendrick Keith M, Becker Benjamin, Montag Christian
Department of Molecular Psychology, Institute of Psychology and Education, Ulm University, Ulm, Germany.
Student Counseling Center, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing, China.
Front Psychol. 2020 Jul 9;11:1132. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01132. eCollection 2020.
The dark triad of personality (DT) comprises three antisocial personality traits (i.e., narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) that are characterized by callousness and the motive to elevate the self while derogating other people. Previous research indicates that the positive relationship between the DT traits and interpersonally deviant behaviors is especially pronounced at high levels of emotional abilities. This has also been referred to as dark Emotional Intelligence (EI). Since prior studies predominantly examined dark EI via trait-approach, the present study targeted at providing evidence for dark EI using a behavioral measure of EI, namely emotion recognition performance. In order to study the robustness and cross-cultural validity of findings, parallel investigations were conducted in Germany and China.
A total of = 198 German (age: = 23.40, = 5.88, 130 female) and = 223 Chinese (age: = 19.01, = 1.06, 105 female) participants took part in an online survey and completed a set of questionnaires in German and Mandarin translations, respectively. DT traits were assessed by means of the Short Dark Triad Scale. As a behavioral measure of emotional abilities, participants completed the Eyes Test for pairs of eyes of Caucasian and Asian models. Moreover, participants filled in the Emotional Manipulation Scale for the assessment of emotionally manipulative tactics.
Effects were highly gender- and culture-dependent. Among German females, Machiavellianism and narcissism showed the strongest positive associations with emotionally manipulative tactics at high levels of emotion recognition performance. A similar pattern of results was found among German males for psychopathy. None of the effects was observed in the Chinese female or male samples.
The present findings indicate that emotional abilities may constitute risk factors with the potential to promote rather than to prevent deviant behaviors especially in samples from Western cultures with pronounced scores on DT personality traits. Limitations and psychometric properties are discussed.
黑暗人格三合一（DT）包含三种反社会人格特质（即自恋、马基雅维利主义和精神病态），其特征是冷酷无情以及在贬低他人的同时抬高自己的动机。先前的研究表明，DT特质与人际偏差行为之间的正相关在高情绪能力水平时尤为明显。这也被称为黑暗情商（EI）。由于先前的研究主要通过特质方法来检验黑暗EI，本研究旨在使用EI的行为测量方法，即情绪识别表现，为黑暗EI提供证据。为了研究结果的稳健性和跨文化有效性，在德国和中国进行了平行调查。
共有198名德国参与者（年龄：M = 23.40，SD = 5.88，130名女性）和223名中国参与者（年龄：M = 19.01，SD = 1.06，105名女性）参加了在线调查，并分别完成了德语和普通话翻译的一组问卷。DT特质通过简短黑暗人格三合一量表进行评估。作为情绪能力的行为测量，参与者完成了针对白种人和亚洲模特眼睛对的眼睛测试。此外，参与者填写了情绪操纵量表以评估情绪操纵策略。
效应高度依赖性别和文化。在德国女性中，马基雅维利主义和自恋在高情绪识别表现水平上与情绪操纵策略呈现出最强的正相关。在德国男性中，精神病态也发现了类似的结果模式。在中国女性或男性样本中未观察到任何效应。
目前的研究结果表明，情绪能力可能构成风险因素，有可能促进而非预防偏差行为，尤其是在DT人格特质得分较高的西方文化样本中。讨论了研究的局限性和心理测量特性。
