D-score

​​Psychologists sometimes use the umbrella term “dark traits” to describe behaviours that are ruthless, selfish, and manipulative. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, and RPTU Kaiserslautern and Elm University in Germany have created a questionnaire to measure what they call “D” - a tendency to ruthlessly pursue one’s own interests, even when this harms others (or even for the sake of harming others), while having beliefs that justify these behaviours.

These characteristics include:

Machiavellianism: using deceit to get what one desires

Moral Disengagement: no regard for the ethics of one’s behaviour

Narcissism: a pervasive sense of superiority

Entitlement: the belief that one deserves more than other people

Psychopathy: impulsivity with low empathy

Spitefulness: getting revenge, even when it harms one’s self-interest

Sadism: getting satisfaction by asserting power to inflict suffering

I asked a handful of friends to do the questionnaire at https://qst.darkfactor.org/ and all had scores similar to mine at the low-D edge of the curve.

This isn’t surprising, as my friends are pretty awesome people. I would encourage you all to take the questionnaire. It’s helpful to have a visual representation of your dark traits score.

One might think that people who possess dark traits might lie on the questionnaire, but a glance at the graph above proves this is not the case. The scores follow what’s called a “normal distribution curve” which means most people score in the middle and fewer people score at the extremes. The high D-score end of the graph has fewer participants than the low end, but there are definitely many participants who admitted to these dark traits in the questionnaire.

If your D-score is low, be aware that you’re especially vulnerable to those with intent to harm. Lovely people are always trying to do better, and if someone manipulative tells them that they’re selfish or unkind, they tend to take those criticisms to heart. This can lead to a vicious cycle of trying harder and harder to care for an abusive person at the expense of their well-being. Reach out to trusted friends or councillors to help you assess whether you really handled a situation badly, or whether the problem lies with your accuser.

Research has consistently found that people who behave badly believe that everyone thinks like they do. They will assert that everyone lies, everyone rapes, and everyone relentlessly pursues revenge. If you score high on the dark traits questionnaire, take note that most people think differently than you. It might be interesting to explore the reasons you hold these beliefs. Dialectical behavioural therapy, metacognitive interpersonal therapy and cognitive behaviour therapy can help identify and modify harmful responses and beliefs.