
“Dark” Personalities Are More Likely to Signal Victimhood - guildwriter
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/after-service/202008/dark-personalities-are-more-likely-signal-victimhood
======
Threeve303
After having unrestricted access to bulletin board systems and the internet
since being 10 years old, I have to say with some disappointment that if the
dark triad personality type is on the rise, it has to be related to what is
now unrestricted free internet for everyone.

The current version of the internet having been commercialized and available
everywhere creates a sort of machine learning feed back loop for narcissism
just like it does with fake news.

We all became the evil queen from Snow White in varying forms. Except the
mirror evolved and became halfway sentient and began controlling us.

If you look at the DSM-5 example of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) it
describes the behaviors and outcomes that we have seen with increased social
media addiction.

So the theory is that the internet is a dangerous addiction like any other,
far more than people want to admit... Certainly more than the people who
helped create it want to admit. All you have to do is look around society to
see the impact.

~~~
Waterfall
I definitely see that but could not write this so elegantly. There's forum
trolls that comment everywhere to show their mark online. The girls I've dated
are different. I don't like most of them anymore because of the things you
pointed out. It wasn't that way even a few years ago. Screen addiction is my
problem. It's essentially a neon sign you change at your whim to do anything
and color really changed perspective. I disabled colors on my devices to
attempt to better work.

------
sadmann1
I have a question regarding dark personalities as they are called.

Now it seems clear to me that dark personalities are a problem. My question
is, aren't these personalities evolutionary adaptations? And if they're
evolutionary adaptations isn't the bigger problem the fact that the
environment rewards them? I'm seeing a lot of people bordering on sociopathy
who are highly successful.

Why focus on the individual instead of the environment that rewards him

~~~
throwaway4889
Here's a handy tip you won't find often on HN: any time you're wondering
whether X is "an evolutionary adaptation", where X is "any complex phenotype
that isn't a genetic disease", the answer is very probably _no_. Most of our
evolution is accidental, because the dominant evolutionary process is genetic
drift [0]. There are exceptions to this rule but they have been usually very
easy to demonstrate - natural selection, when it occurs, is fairly obvious to
see. There's no such thing as a hidden force that invisibly yet tangibly acts
on all genes in such a subtle manner that you can't ever detect it through a
reliable genetic mechanism - that's just 21th century essentialism.

[0] [https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2019/08/evolution-by-
accident....](https://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2019/08/evolution-by-
accident.html)

~~~
Waterfall
Just because evolution is accidental doesn't mean there's no structure behind
it (emergent intelligence). Because in this environment they are successful it
means there is random genetic changes that give these same traits.

How does this explain different phenotypes in grouped populations? Let's say
for instance that a species of ant is known to be more aggressive, why it was
that way is probably generic drift. Why it stays that way is because of its
environment, and it is selected for.

He asked why the environment is like that they rewards this behavior, some
serial killers get screwed up in childhood. Did they all have dark
personalities before?

~~~
throwaway4889
>How does this explain different phenotypes in grouped populations?

Random fixation and/or founder effect, among a myriad of effects that don't
involve natural selection.

>Let's say for instance that a species of ant is known to be more aggressive,
why it was that way is probably generic drift. Why it stays that way is
because of its environment, and it is selected for.

Or the different alleles for aggressiveness (whatever that means, and assuming
they exist) got fixed due to drift? Who knows. The burden of proof is on the
adaptationist to show that something other than contingency happened.

~~~
Waterfall
Why is the founder effect not a part of natural selection? If one population
lives and becomes specialized in a way of life is it not natural selection?
All mammals come from a common ancestor and genetic drift occured or the
founder effect over a long period of time. There are cave fish that are blind
but bred with non blind types gives their offspring eyes back. What is the
difference between founder effect, and natural selection? Are they not part of
the same force?

------
squibbles
This is an interesting topic, but Psychology Today is a poor quality source
for serious discussion.

~~~
guildwriter
The study is linked in the article if you don't trust them.

~~~
squibbles
It is not that I do not trust Psychology Today, but that psychology is a messy
subject. The articles in Psychology Today can perhaps give some insight into
what is being studied in the field, but omits a vast number of details and
nuances that are necessary to interpret study results.

Reliability and validity are notoriously hard to pin down in psychology, and
there is no stable model of mind or personality that all people share. In
practically every study of psychology, one must critically consider not only
the reliability and validity of each and every operational definition, but
also be highly skeptical of every measurement and also of the statistical
techniques applied to those measurements. We know so much about the physical
science compared to so little about psychology because people are "messy" and
unique.

Every person has intimate experience with their own mind, and therefore many
people consider psychology to be accessible. Unfortunately, this is not true.
People do a very poor job of understanding the true nature of themselves,
especially with regards to how their minds operate. The hazard with pop
psychology is that it encourages people to make judgements on others --
judgements that are not necessarily warranted -- and sometimes leads people to
take actions that are not in their or others' best interests.

As an example in the Psychology Today article, the author wrote, "In their
recently published paper, Signaling Virtuous Victimhood as Indicators of Dark
Triad Personalities, the authors suggest that Machiavellianism, narcissism,
and psychopathy might be beneficial for obtaining resources." While Ok et al.
collected interesting data, performed some interesting analyses, and generally
contributed to the scholarly dialog on dark triad personality traits, I would
not characterize the paper as "being a nasty person is good for getting
resources." Such a statement completely ignores how dark triad personality
traits can also contribute to poor outcomes in life.

Even worse, the original paper did not address anything at all about risk
analysis for donating to people requesting resources. Yet, the Psychology
Today article concludes with "Today, those with dark triad traits might find
that the best way to extract rewards is by making a public spectacle of their
victimhood and virtue." Is that advice for dark triad people? Is that a
warning for altruistic people? Is is a statement about the Internet? Is it a
recommendation against donating to people who claim to urgently need help? My
point is that the Psychology Today article took a messy subject, left it
messy, and suggests the reader walks away more knowledgable.

With the hard sciences it is much easier to home in on the differences between
academic papers and what the popular press writes about them. For the soft
sciences, it is much more important be critical of the topic of discussion.

