dark Empathy – Rational-Understanding.com

Machiavellianism

Machiavellianism is a personality type first described by the psychologists Richard Christie and Florence L. Geis (Christie & Geiss 2013). Although the name for this personality type is derived from that of Niccolo Machiavelli, the infamous author of “The Prince”, it is not related to his political doctrine. Rather, his work was used by Christie and Geiss as a source of ideas about those who manipulate others.

Typical features of a Machiavellian personality, as described by Sanjana Gupta in Very Well Mind, are:

“Focusing only on their own goals and interests.
Prioritizing success, power, money, and fame above all else.
Manipulating or exploiting others for their own gain.
Having no qualms about deceiving or lying to others.
Being charming and using flattery to their advantage.
Believing the end result justifies the means.
Having a cynical view of human nature.
Having a negative attitude toward everything.
Believing themselves to be superior to others.
Not being able to empathize with others.
Having difficulty trusting other people.
Being disconnected from their own emotions.
Struggling to identify and express their feelings.
Staying aloof and lacking genuine warmth in social interactions.
Avoiding emotional attachments with others.
Being able to read people and social situations, and using this insight to their advantage.”

Machiavellianism is one of the three personality types that form the “Dark Triad” described by the psychologists Delroy L. Paulhus and Kevin M. Williams in 2002 (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). All three personality types are a consequence of both inheritance and environment, but Machiavellianism is thought to be influenced slightly more by environment than is the case for narcissism and psychopathy.

Dark Empathy

Empathy is an ability to understand the minds of others and to share feelings with them. According to psychologists who advocate the classification of personality using the dark triad, i.e., narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism, these personality types are characterised by a lack of empathy.

In practice however, all the traits the go up to make these personality types vary on a scale, sometimes independently and sometimes in a way that correlates with other traits. The pattern of divergence from the average for each trait is very diverse and probably unique for each individual. So, the three personality types that comprise the dark triad are broad categories that overlap and share common features.

Researchers have found that empathy also varies independently of other traits, and thus, that it is possible for people who are broadly narcissistic, psychopathic, or Machiavellian to have empathy. These personality types are known as dark empaths. (Heym & Sumich, 2022)

Heym and Sumich assessed the personality traits of one thousand people from the general population. They were testing for elevated or lowered personality traits rather than psychological disorders. They found that 67% were low in dark traits and 33% high. 53% were high in empathy and 47% low. The distribution is shown in the following diagram.

They also found that dark empaths were not as aggressive as those in the traditional dark triad group. However, they were more socially aggressive than both the typicals and the empaths. That is, they were more willing to hurt or manipulate others using social exclusion, malicious humour, or by inducing guilt.

Unsurprisingly, they also found that empaths were the most agreeable, followed by typicals, then dark empaths. Those in the traditional dark triad group were the least agreeable, i.e., exhibited the least “niceness” and friendliness.

Heym and Sumich conclude that “Though the aggression reported by the dark empaths was not as high as the traditional dark triad group, the danger of this personality profile is that their empathy, and likely resulting social skills, make their darkness harder to spot. We believe that dark empaths have the capacity to be callous and ruthless, but are able to limit such aggression.”

References

Christie, R. & Geis, F.L. (2013). “Studies in Machievellianism” Academic Press. ISBN 978-1-4832-6060-0.

Heym, N. & Sumich, A., 2022. “Dark empaths: how dangerous are psychopaths and narcissists with empathy?”. The Conversation 16/3/2022. https://theconversation.com/dark-empaths-how-dangerous-are-psychopaths-and-narcissists-with-empathy-178715

Paulhus, D.L. & Williams, K.M. (2002). “The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and Psychopathy”. Journal of Research in Personality. 36 (6): 556–563. doi:10.1016/S0092-6566(02)00505-6.

https://www.verywellmind.com/machiavellianism-origins-signs-scale-and-coping-7377514