The Dark Side
Inspired by the Dark Triad, with our own questions.
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What it measures
In 2002 the psychologists Delroy Paulhus and Kevin Williams named the Dark Triad: three traits, studied separately for decades, that overlap in ordinary people without being the same thing. Narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy go here by plainer names: Ego, Strategy and Nerve.
Ego is how much you want to be noticed and admired. Strategy is how carefully you read people and plan your moves. Nerve is how little fear and guilt slow you down, and how much you go looking for a thrill. All three are measured in the everyday range, and everyone has some of each.
The three go together loosely, and all of them tend to come with lower agreeableness, the Big Five trait for warmth and cooperation. Each one also has its uses, and the report takes those as seriously as the costs.
Three of the questions
- I like being the person people notice when I walk in.
- I keep some things to myself until they are useful to me.
- I would rather get in trouble than be bored.
What you get
- A score from 0 to 100 on Ego, Strategy and Nerve, so you can see how close the three are
- A note on each trait written for where you landed, with what that level gives you and what it costs
- Your pattern: which of the three leads, or what it means when all three sit low
- A plain note on what these scores can and cannot tell you
Where it comes from
We wrote the questions ourselves, nine for each trait, describing everyday behavior instead of extreme behavior so the honest answer is easy to give. The layout of three traits side by side follows the Short Dark Triad (Jones and Paulhus, 2014). Until enough people have taken the test to compare you with them, scores are read against the middle of the scale.
Who owns the original
Delroy Paulhus and Kevin Williams named the Dark Triad in 2002. Published research scales, such as the Short Dark Triad, belong to their authors. Our questions are our own, and we are not affiliated with any of these researchers or their institutions.