People whose personality combines negative traits with high empathy can be especially dangerous to others.
The so-called «dark triad» of negative personal qualities usually includes narcissism (narcissism, high self-esteem, selfishness), Machiavellianism (deceit, cynicism, the desire to manipulate and exploit other people for their own interests) and psychopathy (asocial behavior, impulsiveness, heartlessness).
All these three personality traits are united by a lack of empathy, that is, the ability to understand the emotional state of another person and empathize with him. It is generally accepted that a lack of empathy makes a person more aggressive and dangerous to others.
However, psychologists from Nottingham Trent University (Great Britain), whose article in Personality and Individual Differences, found that there is another personality type in which the negative traits of the «dark triad» are combined with a high level of empathy. People who scientists have called «dark empaths» may even be more dangerous to others than those who have little or no empathy.
The researchers analyzed the results of testing almost a thousand volunteers for the degree of manifestation of «dark» character traits in their personality, as well as for the level of empathy. As expected, people with strong narcissistic, psychopathic or Machiavellian personality traits (they made up 13% of the participants) scored low on the empathy scale. Approximately 34% of the participants were assigned to the «typical» group — they scored low or average scores on all indicators. Another 33% of the participants were classified as «empaths» — in their personality, a high level of empathy was combined with low manifestations of traits from the «dark triad».
However, as it turned out, there is a fourth group of people (about 20% of the participants) who scored high on both the Dark Triad scale and the empathy scale. Moreover, to the surprise of the researchers, the “dark empaths” turned out to be even more empathic than the participants from the “typical” group.
At the same time, “dark empaths” are not as aggressive as people from the “dark triad” group, they are rather prone to indirect, veiled aggression.
They take pleasure in harming or manipulating people through the instillation of guilt, the threat of ostracism (social rejection), and mocking jokes.
“Dark empaths” were the friendliest of all study participants, and also showed the highest scores on the extraversion scale, that is, such people are sociable, active and full of energy in everyday life.
Apparently, the presence of empathy makes them want to interact with people and enjoy it, despite the fact that the hidden motive for such communication is the desire to dominate others, the researchers write. It is the deceptively benevolent appearance of «dark empaths» that makes them especially dangerous to other people, scientists emphasize.