What Role Does the Dark Triad Play in Creativity?

• Some have suggested that antisocial traits, such as the Dark Triad of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, play a role in creativity.
• Researchers hypothesize that characteristics such as a willingness to violate social norms, self-confidence, and emotional coldness may be important for generating bold, original ideas.
• Among the Dark Triad traits, only narcissism seems to be linked to creative abilities, according to recent research.
• The reason might be that narcissism is also associated with higher levels of openness to experience and extraversion, which are also tied to creativity.

In the psychology of creativity, there have long been suggestions that creativity might be linked to socially aversive traits such as dishonesty, arrogance, aggression, hostility, and self-absorption. For example, some research has found links between creativity and dishonest behaviour such as cheating (Gino & Wiltermuth, 2014). This has led to speculation about whether creativity is linked to the “Dark Triad” of personality, a set of selfish, antagonistic traits consisting of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.

A recent study (Lebuda et al., 2021) reviewed existing research on the topic and found small but significant positive relationships between various aspects of creativity and the Dark Triad, although more so for narcissism than Machiavellianism and psychopathy. This might be because narcissism is linked with more adaptive aspects of normal personality that have also been linked to creativity than the other Dark Triad traits.

Salvador Dali was an extraordinarily creative artist who also had a reputation for being an unpleasant person

Source: Salvabl via Wikimedia Commons

The concept of the Dark Triad of personality suggests that these three traits related to selfish and antisocial behaviour share a common core, although each also possesses distinctive features. Psychopathy refers to callous disregard for the rights of others and is considered the most malevolent and therefore "darkest" member of the triad. Machiavellianism entails a cynical, manipulative approach to social interaction. Narcissism refers to a grandiose sense of one’s own superiority to other and feelings of entitlement to special treatment. Narcissism has some adaptive features, such as being associated with self-esteem and self-confidence, and is often considered the "lightest" of these traits.

The Dark Triad traits share a common core of interpersonal antagonism, which is related to low levels of the personality trait of agreeableness, which refers to the quality of one’s relationships with other people. Narcissism is distinct from Machiavellianism and psychopathy in that it is also often related to high levels of extraversion (which is related to social confidence and assertiveness) and openness to experience (which is related to having artistic interests and imagination) (O’Boyle et al., 2015).

Which Dark Triad Traits Are Linked to Creativity?

Some people have suggested that antisocial traits like the Dark Triad might be associated with creativity because characteristics such as willingness to violate social norms, self-confidence, and even emotional coldness seem to be important for the ability to generate original and bold ideas, which is necessary for creativity. Indeed, a previous review of studies on creativity found that creative scientists and artists tended to be more hostile and less accepting of group norms (Feist, 1998), which might reflect low agreeableness and therefore Dark Triad traits.

To test this, Lebuda et al. (2021) performed a meta-analysis, i.e., a review of previous studies, to determine just how large or small is the association between creativity and the Dark Triad of narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Overall, they found that narcissism had a modest positive relationship with creativity, Machiavellianism had a small positive relationship, and psychopathy had no effect.

To refine their results further, they looked at results for studies that assessed creativity using measures of performance on tests of divergent thinking, and those in which individuals subjectively rated their own creativity. Only narcissism was significantly related to performance measures, while all three Dark Triad traits were significantly positively related to self-rated creativity, although narcissism still showed stronger effects than Machiavellianism and psychopathy.

Additionally, links between narcissism and creativity were stronger when measured using self-ratings than performance measures. Furthermore, the meta-analysis considered four domains of creativity: general, arts, science, and everyday creativity. Interestingly, narcissism was modestly associated with creativity in all four domains, while Machiavellianism and psychopathy each had a modest significant positive association with creativity in science and much weaker or non-significant associations with the other domains.

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The authors suggested the Dark Triad traits seem to have modest connections with motivational aspects of creativity (as measured by self-ratings) but only narcissism seems to be linked with actual ability aspects (as measured by performance), although this relationship was much smaller. This difference in size between motivational and ability aspects might reflect a narcissistic tendency to exaggerate one’s achievements, but it could also be that creative self-beliefs might give a person the confidence to engage in creative activities that require actual ability. In turn, success in creative activity might boost one’s creative self-image.

The link between Dark Triad traits and self-rated creativity in science, in particular, seems a little puzzling, as previous research suggested a stronger link between nonconformity to social norms and artistic rather than scientific creativity (Batey & Furnham, 2006; Feist, 1998). Lebuda et al. (2021) suggested that this might reflect the greater prestige attached to science, which might be especially appealing to people with dark traits, who seek to enhance their social status. This could also reflect popular perceptions of scientists as tending to be emotionally cold and amoral (Rutjens & Heine, 2016). Interestingly, a recent study (Coenen et al., 2021) found that high school students who were interested in entering STEM fields tended to be low in agreeableness, which suggests that science might particularly appeal to people with socially aversive traits.

What Other Personality Traits Are Important for Creativity?

Considering the links between normal personality traits and creativity might shed some light on the findings regarding the Dark Triad. A review of studies on the relationship between Big Five personality traits (extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience) and creativity (Puryear et al., 2017) showed that all measures of creativity, including performance, self-rated, and observer-rated measures, were most strongly positively related to openness to experience, and to a lesser extent to extraversion. The other three traits, on the other hand, had very weak and inconsistent relationships with creativity, and this was especially true for agreeableness, which showed a mixture of positive, negative, and non-significant relationships with various creativity measures.

Openness to experience is associated with having a vivid imagination and artistic interests. It is also associated with reduced cognitive inhibition, which involves less filtering of irrelevant ideas, which could lead to more original associations that may enhance creativity. Puryear et al. suggested that extraversion might be related to creativity through greater willingness to share one’s ideas. Extraversion is also related to greater impulsivity and quickness of response, which might also enhance creativity.

Remembering that narcissism was the only member of the Dark Triad to be associated with both performance and self-rated measures of creativity; the reason for this might be that narcissism, unlike Machiavellianism and psychopathy, is also associated with higher openness to experience and extraversion. Furthermore, the common core of the Dark Triad is interpersonal antagonism, which reflects low agreeableness, which is only weakly and inconsistently related to creativity. This suggests that the antagonistic aspects of the Dark Triad might play only a very limited role in creativity compared to other traits associated more directly with creativity that also happen to be elevated in narcissism.