People hide psychopathy but highlight narcissism when trying to look good

New research published in the journal Collabra: Psychology provides evidence that people with certain antisocial personality traits alter their responses in specific ways when trying to make a good impression. The study suggests that while some individuals hide their toxic traits during a simulated job application, those with strong narcissistic tendencies actually highlight them. These findings offer a better understanding of how deception operates in personality testing and how different dark traits respond to social pressure.

The research team, consisting of Bojana M. Dinić from the University of Novi Sad and Irena Boskovic from Erasmus University Rotterdam, wanted to explore how dark personality traits interact with deceptive test-taking. The Dark Tetrad refers to four socially aversive personality traits that share a core of callousness and manipulative interpersonal behavior.

The first is Machiavellianism, which describes a strategic, calculated, and cynical approach to manipulating other people for personal gain. The second is narcissism, particularly in its grandiose form, which is characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance, entitlement, and a constant need for external validation.

The third trait in this group is psychopathy, which involves a profound lack of empathy, a deficit in feelings of remorse or guilt, and a tendency toward impulsive behavior. The final trait is sadism, defined as deriving pleasure and enjoyment from the physical or psychological suffering of others.

People who score high in these traits tend to engage in deceptive behaviors, including lying to achieve their goals. The researchers initiated this project to see how people with these traits alter their survey responses when specifically instructed to present themselves in the best possible light.

In psychological assessment, presenting oneself in an overly positive manner is known as faking good. This behavior often takes the form of impression management, where a person intentionally distorts their self-description to appear more competent or moral than they actually are. People can manage their impressions in two main ways, often referred to as agency and communion. Agentic management focuses on getting ahead in life, leading a person to exaggerate their social status, intellectual abilities, and overall competence to seem highly capable.

Communal management, by contrast, focuses on getting along with others. A person using this strategy might exaggerate their cooperativeness and helpfulness while firmly denying any socially unacceptable impulses or flaws. Another specific form of faking good is called supernormality. This occurs when an individual systematically denies experiencing even the most common everyday health complaints, such as mild headaches, to appear perfectly healthy and well-adjusted.

Both impression management and supernormality are common in high-stakes situations like job interviews and forensic evaluations. To test these dynamics, the researchers recruited 104 community participants from Serbia. The sample consisted of 87 women and 17 men, with an average age of about 27 years. Most participants were either university students or actively employed.

The study used a within-subject design, meaning that every participant completed the same set of questionnaires twice under different conditions. During one condition, the participants were instructed to answer the questions honestly. In the other condition, they were asked to imagine they were taking a job selection test and needed to make the best possible impression. The order of these conditions was randomized, so about half of the participants answered honestly first, while the other half started with the fake good instructions.

The scientists measured the participants using three specific psychological tools, including hidden attention checks to ensure participants were reading the questions attentively. They used the Short Dark Tetrad questionnaire, which contains 28 statements, to assess levels of Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism. To measure impression management, they used the Bidimensional Impression Management Index. This tool evaluates both the tendency to exaggerate social status and the tendency to deny socially unacceptable impulses.

Finally, they used the Supernormality Scale, which consists of true or false statements to measure how often participants denied common everyday health symptoms. The data provides evidence that participants significantly altered their responses based on the instructions. When instructed to fake good, participants showed decreased scores for psychopathy and sadism compared to their honest answers. This suggests that people recognize the socially undesirable nature of callousness and cruelty, prompting them to hide these traits when trying to secure a job.

However, the narcissism scores actually increased under the fake good condition. This indicates that people often perceive narcissistic qualities, such as high self-confidence and assertiveness, as desirable traits in a professional setting. Because grandiosity shares some overlap with adaptive leadership qualities, participants may have actively highlighted their narcissistic tendencies to appear like ideal job applicants.

Machiavellianism scores remained stable across both the honest and the fake good conditions. The authors suggest this stability might occur because modern measures of Machiavellianism focus heavily on strategic planning and emotional control rather than overt aggression. Participants may have felt that these calculating traits did not need to be hidden, or they might have already been masking their true nature even during the honest condition.

When analyzing the shift between honest and fake good scores, the authors found an unexpected pattern regarding Machiavellianism. Higher scores in honest Machiavellianism actually predicted a lower increase in communal management under the fake good condition. The authors suggest that highly Machiavellian individuals might be keenly aware of the challenges of faking good. Because they want to maintain a realistic and credible image, they might avoid exaggerating their interpersonal warmth to the point that it looks suspicious.

The researchers also looked at how the dark traits related to the specific types of faking good. Under honest reporting conditions, individuals with higher levels of narcissism and Machiavellianism tended to engage in agentic management, meaning they naturally exaggerated their competence and social status. On the other hand, individuals with high levels of psychopathy and sadism showed very low communal management, meaning they did not bother to exaggerate their cooperative or moral qualities.

Interestingly, none of the Dark Tetrad traits were significantly associated with supernormality. This suggests that individuals with dark personality traits are more likely to deceive others regarding their social status and adherence to social norms, rather than faking perfect physical or mental health. The scientists also evaluated the Serbian version of the Supernormality Scale during this process. They noted that a slightly higher cutoff score might be necessary to accurately identify health-related deception in this specific population.

While the research offers a detailed look at personality and deception, a few limitations should be noted to avoid misinterpretations. The study relied on a simulated job application rather than a real scenario. People might behave differently when a real job or legal outcome is actually on the line. Additionally, the sample was relatively small, geographically limited to Serbia, and heavily composed of young women.

Cultural norms dictate which traits are considered socially desirable, so these patterns might look different in other countries or across different age groups. One of the subscales measuring social desirability also showed slightly lower statistical reliability, meaning those specific results should be viewed with some caution. Future research could explore these dynamics in larger, more diverse samples to see if the findings hold true across different cultures.

The authors suggest that subsequent studies should also include specific populations that might be more prone to dark traits and deceptive behavior, such as violent offenders. Testing these measures in true high-stakes environments could provide even more information about how people manipulate their self-presentation in the real world.

The study, “Fake Good in the Dark Tetrad: Score Changes and Relationships With Impression Management and Supernormality,” was authored by Bojana M. Dinić and Irena Boskovic.