Illuminating The Dark Side Of Human

Best way to live - see good in everyone, that's probably a not so smart way to live (if not the dumbest). Some human just have personality traits that are not just disagreeable but sinisterly and potentially damaging.

The dark triad or the dark tetrad are not words commonly used in everyday discussions but are common words psychologists use to relate to the dark personality traits. The dark triad refers to the three elements of personality traits, or four in the case of dark tetrad which is expanded by the inclusion of sadism.

These traits are closely associated with antisocial behaviour, low or lack of empathy, aggressiveness, Hugh impulsivity and the likes.
You really don't want to cross anyone with any or combination of these traits.

Narcissism

Don't get this twisted, self love is very important to every human, but this set of human take it to the extreme. For them, there it is no little space for anyone else. It is characterised by a 'unrealistic' and grandiose view of one's self along with a very high sense of entitlement.

It is an impaired ability (Narcissistic Personality Disorder, NDA) to recognise and identity/see the needs or feelings of others, they make no consideration for others in their thoughts and actions. They actually don't see no need to and nothing wrong in that. Few of the common behavioural traits of the narcissist include entitlement, arrogance, exploitation, envy, attention seeking, condescending of others...

Psychopathy

Psychopaths are people diagnosed with antisocial Personality Disorder, usually characterised by antisocial traits like lack of empathy, callousness, manipulation, violence and crimes etc. For all the Psychopaths' soullessness, they possess external interpersonal grace such as grandiosity and charm.

These come handy when luring in their victim or 'object'. It is almost impossible to spot a Psychopath unless caught in the act of violence, they are smooth. There is a huge difference between having Psychopathic traits or tendencies and been a Psychopath. Psychopathic trait can be inherited but often need a trigger in the form traumatic experience and/or childhood abuse. You can read more about psychopaths in this post. ***

Machiavellism

This is dark tetrad behaviours that are learned and involve personality adoption or adjustment. Named after the Italian Nichollo Machiavelli, who wrote The prince in 1550. Machiavillians are all about specific or personal gain or power. Emotions and moralities are considered as great barriers to achieving personal heights. Machiavellism is associated with socially frowned at behaviours like exploitation of others, manipulation of others, cynicism, deceptions. A high machiavillian can play the opposite or the role of any dark Tetra, even unleashing violence on others to achieve his personal gain if there is need. Machiavellian are master of their own emotions but identify, assess and spark emotion reactions in others to be used against them.

They are likely to outperform others, reach their target and climb higher and faster than others, mostly by scheming, using or hurting people and to the extreme killing. The lack of empathy of a high machiavillian, though adopted or learned is close if not equal to that of Psychopaths and sadists. ***

Everyday Sadism

This was the the latest introduction to the dark triad, now dark Tetrad.
Sadism was named after a French philosopher and writer, Marquis dear Sade (1749 - 1814), he wrote majorly about philosophy, sexual fantasy and violence. As against popular opinion, everyday sadist are not about extreme sexual fantasies as Marquis de Sade's works suggested. Not everyone with sadistic tendencies exhibits abberant sexuality.

They are all about cruelty, cruelty intoxicates and gives them pleasure.

They are not as controlled, calculative, subtle and fatal as the Psychopaths. They seek the pleasure of watching their 'objects' suffer.

It has been hard to perform 'real' experiment in this category, as that would mean letting human suffer. An experiment was however conducted by Delroy Paulhus of the University of British Columbia, Canada. The study was staged with bugs and coffee crusher. Unknown to the participants, the bugs were not to be crushed. The crushing machine was however making 'crushing' sounds to give distinct gruesome effect and give the participants the impressions they were killing the bugs cruelly. Of course as reported, they did not 'do more' or give any impressions of pleasure. The volunteers were also said score very high everyday sadism test.
Again, the bugs were not killed in the staged experiment, which Delroy Paulhus called building a 'taxonomy' for the volunteers
Though personally i don't think the 'bug crushing' experiment is sufficient to determine the dark personality trait of people. Everyday sadism exhibits trait a bit different from other dark personality. They exhibits cruelty without of having interest in taking it to the very extreme or killing like Psychopaths.

Sadism Test - How Dark is your Personality?

It is difficult to know for sure how cruel a person can be. Researchers constructed 20 questions for 199 undergraduates to determine their level of sadism. The subject were asked how strongly they agree or disagree with some 'not so regular' statements on a scale of 1 - 5. The test was found to be good in 'measuring' sadism as a separate dark personality traits from the dark triad...
The initial 20 statements was later trimmed to 9 statements, this time with 202 undergraduates for a stronger results. The abridged statements are as listed...

I have made fun of people so that they know I am in control.

I never get tired of pushing people around.

I would hurt somebody if it meant I would be in control.

When I mock someone, it's funny to see them get upset.

Being mean to others can be exciting.

I get pleasure from mocking people in front of their friends.

Watching people get into fights excites me.

I think about hurting people who irritate me.

I would not purposely hurt anybody, even if I didn't like them.

The higher you score out of the possible 45, the higher your level of sadism.

Thank you for reading.

Images gotten copyright free from Pixabay 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

References
Scientists developed this 9-question test to measure how sadistic someone is

Psychology : The man who studies I everyday evil

The Dark is rising

Dark triad