Dark Personality Features and Emotion Dysregulation

Previous reports have painted a complex picture of the associations between dark personality features and emotion dysregulation. To provide a more comprehensive picture, 532 college students completed measures of dark personality features—the Dark Triad (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism), sadism, and spitefulness—and emotion dysregulation. We found that the grandiose and leadership facets of narcissism were negatively associated with various aspects of emotion dysregulation. In contrast, spitefulness, the callous aspect of psychopathy, and Machiavellianism were positively associated with some aspects of emotion dysregulation. Sadism was not associated with emotion dysregulation. The implications of these results for the understanding of dark personality features are discussed.