Laboratory experiment reveals that Dark Tetrad traits and music preferences modulate stress and arithmetic performance in adults, suggesting tailored approaches to stress management.
Key Points
Investigate how Dark Tetrad personality facets and music preferences directly and interactively relate to subjective and physiological stress and cognitive performance.
Administered surveys assessing Dark Tetrad facets, state stress, maths anxiety, and music preferences to 86 participants (mean age = 30.41 years; 54.7% female).
Subjected participants to a stress-inducing arithmetic task with time and social evaluation pressures under either music or radio listening conditions.
Assessed subjective stress, physiological stress via heart rate, task accuracy, and calculation time across conditions.
Both music and radio listening significantly decreased subjective and physiological stress during the pre-task waiting period.
Psychopathic stability and Machiavellian agency negatively predicted state stress, while psychopathic stability was associated with faster calculation times and agentic narcissism predicted higher accuracy.
Classical music preference significantly moderated the relationships of psychopathic stability, verbal sadism, and agentic narcissism with subjective stress, with high agentic narcissism combined with classical music preference linking to lower subjective stress.