#darktetrad — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #darktetrad, aggregated by home.social.
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DATE: September 3, 2026 at 07:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: The link between dark personality traits and online toxicity is more nuanced than expected
A new study found that individuals with more pronounced dark personality traits tend to report more engagement in uncivil online interactions. However, analysis of their actual Reddit comments did not confirm this association—dark personality traits were not associated with any of the toxicity or linguistic features of their comments. The paper was published in Computers in Human Behavior.
Online social platforms have transformed how people communicate, exchange information, and build communities. However, they have also created new opportunities for harmful behavior. Toxic and hateful speech is particularly concerning because hostile online interactions can result in psychological harm, and, in some cases, offline violence. Research increasingly suggests that such behavior is shaped not only by the design of online platforms or specific situations, but also by individual personality differences.
Particular attention has been given to the so-called Dark Tetrad: Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and everyday sadism. These traits have been associated with behaviors such as trolling, cyberbullying, manipulation, hostility, and the production or endorsement of toxic content. For example, people with stronger sadistic tendencies may enjoy provoking or upsetting others, while psychopathic traits have been linked to more impulsive and hostile online interactions.
Because personality also influences how people communicate, researchers have become interested in whether psychological characteristics might be reflected in the language people use online. This has contributed to the development of computational approaches that attempt to infer personality traits from digital behavior and linguistic patterns.
Study author Aldo Cerulli and his colleagues explored the relationship between dark personality traits and the textual content people post online. More specifically, they wanted to see whether dark personality traits can be reliably inferred from textual materials on social media.
Study participants were 114 U.S. individuals recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk, a crowdsourcing platform. After enrolling in the study, participants provided information the researchers needed to link them to their Reddit accounts. For this, the study authors developed a dedicated web application that interfaces directly with Reddit’s Application Programming Interface (API), allowing for the secure, automated collection of participant data.
The study authors used this link to collect participants’ Reddit comments. In total, this included 152,741 sentences that comprised 56,892 comments. The mean number of comments per participant was 499. By analyzing these texts, the study authors derived estimates of participants’ online toxicity, psycholinguistic characteristics, emotional expressions, contextual emotions, moral foundations, use of irony, and text-derived dark personality traits. Aside from this, study participants completed questionnaire assessments of dark personality traits (the Dark Side of Humanity Scale), cyberbullying and trolling (the Cyberbully/Troll Deviancy Scale), and six items regarding their social media use habits.
Results showed no significant associations between the self-reported dark personality traits and estimates of those traits derived computationally from participants’ text responses. Individuals whose self-reported trolling behaviors and dark personality traits, particularly Successful Psychopathy—a calculated, manipulative style combining psychopathy and Machiavellianism—were more pronounced tended to report using uncivil comments and content on social media more often. However, dark personality traits did not predict actual toxicity expressed in participants’ Reddit comments.
Unlike personality traits, participants’ own descriptions of their online behavior were associated with their actual Reddit behavior. More specifically, participants who said they often produced toxic content actually tended to have more toxic Reddit comments. Furthermore, people who reported being targets of toxicity also tended to produce more toxic comments, suggesting a form of perpetrator-victim reciprocity where exposure to hostility increases the likelihood of responding in kind.
“Our results underscore the importance of grounding computational approaches in validated psychological measures and point to the need for richer, context-aware representations to better understand the relationship between personality and online behavior,” the study authors concluded.
The study contributes to scientific knowledge about the associations between personality traits and online behavior. However, it should be noted that the study was conducted on a relatively small sample of participants and focused on Reddit comments only. Results of studies on larger samples, exploring wider sources of online behavior, and using different approaches to text analysis might differ. Additionally, the validity of estimates of psychological characteristics derived from features of text comments is unclear.
The paper, “Dark personality traits and online toxicity: Linking self-reports to Reddit activity,” was authored by Aldo Cerulli, Benedetta Tessa, Giuseppe La Selva, Oronzo Mazzeo, Lorenzo Cima, Lucia Monacis, and Stefano Cresci.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #DarkTetrad #OnlineToxicity #PsychologyOfSocialMedia #RedditResearch #TrollingAndCyberbullying #Machiavellianism #Psychopathy #DarkPersonality #ComputersInHumanBehavior #TextAnalysis #LinguisticPatterns
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One of the hallmarks of the #ClassicNarcissist is to convince their intended Supply to do something incredibly harmful to themselves, often with longlasting or permanent consequences, by making it seem beneficial and clever, emphasizing the short-term benefits
If you think that sounds convoluted, absurd, and totally psychotic, you’d be right
#Psychology #PersonalityType #DarkTriad #DarkTetrad #Psychopathy #Narcissism
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RE: https://mastodon.world/@paninid/117100056732600255
🗣 LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK!!!
#DarkTetrad #sociopathy #machiavellism #sadism #narcissism #fascism
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DATE: August 10, 2026 at 04:00PM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Psychopathic individuals more tolerant of online dating deception, study finds
Most dating-app users strongly disapprove of people lying about their gender, appearance or age, but deception about weight receives considerably more tolerance, according to research published in Behaviour Information Technology. Greater acceptance of some lies was also associated with psychopathic personality traits and, to a lesser extent, gender and education.
Research suggests that men and women may misrepresent different characteristics when seeking partners: men are reportedly more likely to exaggerate their status, resources or height, while women may be more likely to misrepresent their weight or appearance.
Such deception is not always equivalent to catfishing or romance fraud, but it may still damage trust. Discovering that a prospective partner has misrepresented themselves can reduce the likelihood that a first date develops into a relationship. Nevertheless, relatively little research has examined which dating-app deceptions people consider unacceptable and whether personality influences these judgments.
Olga Bogolyubova, originally affiliated with the University of Malta when the study was conducted, surveyed 796 current or former dating-app users. Participants were aged 18 to 67, with an average age of 27.96. The sample included 393 men, 392 women, eight people who selected another gender category and three who did not report their gender.
Participants read six hypothetical dating-app scenarios. These described people lying about their age, gender, appearance, weight, socioeconomic status or relationship status. Examples included using a model’s photograph, claiming to be single while married and posing as another gender for entertainment. Each participant randomly received male or female versions of the scenarios.
They rated each behavior on a seven-point scale ranging from “entirely unacceptable” to “entirely acceptable.” Participants also completed a questionnaire measuring four dark personality traits: psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism and sadism.
These four characteristics collectively make up what psychologists refer to as the “Dark Tetrad.” Narcissism is generally characterized by a grandiose sense of self-importance, a feeling of entitlement, and a deep need for admiration. Machiavellianism involves a cynical, manipulative, and highly strategic approach to social interactions, where individuals prioritize their own interests and calculate how to use others to their advantage.
Psychopathy typically manifests as high impulsivity, thrill-seeking, callousness, and a pronounced lack of empathy for others. Finally, sadism refers to the tendency to derive enjoyment, amusement, or satisfaction from inflicting physical or psychological distress on others.
The nature of the lie made a substantial difference in how participants reacted. Deception about gender was strongly rejected by 93.1% of participants, followed by appearance at 90.6%, age at 81.6%, relationship status at 78.5% and socioeconomic status at 71%.
Only 37.7% strongly rejected the weight deception. In that scenario, a person understated their weight by 40 pounds—approximately 18 kilograms—and avoided posting full-body photographs. Bogolyubova suggested that this difference may have appeared relatively moderate to participants and therefore less serious than using an entirely different person’s photograph or concealing a marriage.
Psychopathy was the most consistent personality factor. Higher scores predicted a greater likelihood of not strongly rejecting deception about gender and relationship status. Among participants who did not already classify deception as unacceptable, higher psychopathy was also associated with greater acceptance of lies concerning age, appearance and relationship status. Notably, the study assessed personality characteristics along a continuum; it did not diagnose participants as “psychopaths.”
As Bogolyubova concluded, “psychopathy emerged as the most consistent individual difference associated with tolerance for deception in online dating.”
Gender differences were also present. Men were less likely than women to strongly reject deception involving age, socioeconomic status and relationship status. Women judged lies about age and relationship status less harshly when the person engaging in the deception was female. However, the size of these differences was small, meaning gender provided only limited information about an individual’s response.
Additionally, lower educational attainment predicted greater acceptance of age and appearance deception among participants who did not strongly reject those behaviors.
Some limitations are to be noted. The study utilized a convenience sample, self-reported attitudes and hypothetical scenarios that had not been independently validated. Some personality measures were also less reliable than desirable, and attitudes do not necessarily predict behavior.
The study, “Perceptions of deceptive self-presentation in online dating: unacceptable or not? The role of gender and dark personality traits,” was authored by Olga Bogolyubova.
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #OnlineDatingDeception #DarkTetrad #PsychopathyInDating #DatingAppEthics #CatfishAwareness #GenderDeception #WeightMisrepresentation #DatingSafety # trustInDating #DigitalDatingResearch
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I saw another article today of some random famous person accusing another random famous person of being a #Psychopath and I feel compelled to point out two very important facts about #Psychopathy:
1. Psychopathy is only one thing, extreme (ie., as good as complete) empathy deficiency. The rest of what happens in the mind of a Psychopath is just what human beings are without empathy.
2. Intentionally using emotionally-charged words for their effect rather than their meaning, often in order to manipulate people, such as occurs as an aspect of attention-seeking behaviour patterns, is consistent with psychopathic personality traits as a whole, although typically favoured by the #NarcissistNow, more than ever before, ignore what people say and look hard at what they do
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A survey of 677 people assessed generative AI use, tolerance of uncertainty, and dark personality traits. Those with the most problematic genAI use had higher narcissism, Machiavellianism, sadism, and intolerance of uncertainty. Vertical individualism--a focus on status, achievement, and acceptance of inequality--partially or fully mediated the relationships.
Summary: https://www.psypost.org/narcissistic-individuals-are-more-prone-to-problematic-use-of-generative-ai/
Original paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40359-026-05012-4
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CW: Analysis: Political Landscape, Moral Grandstanding, and the Dark Tetrad.
After watching Maternal Instinct, I decided to watch some follow-up videos regarding the defendant because this particular case heavily involved fraud and deception. As someone that is interested in the intersection of psychology, criminology, and cybersecurity (i.e., behavioral analysis and threat hunting), I found this case to be particularly interesting regarding the social engineering tactics involved.
While doing research, I stumbled upon the "Dark Tetrad." While I was already somewhat familiar with the Dark Triad, this adds new elements to that existing psychological research regarding the pleasure from other's suffering. I couldn't help but to look back and consider my own online trolling/angry responses regarding the polarized political climate over the last decade. While I have since stepped back from social media (and really all big tech controlled environments), I couldn't help but feel guilty about my past behavior after reading about the dark tetrad.
In digital spaces, we often witness users flippantly applying maximum-severity labels (e.g., "Nazi") to minor policy disagreements. While tribalism explains the majority, psychological research shows that some of the instigators of these trends often exhibit Dark Tetrad traits such as sadism and Machiavellianism. For them, the label isn't historical analysis; it’s a high-potency payload used deliberately to cause psychological distress and social chaos.
From a threat assessment perspective, this creates a lot of noise and a "Boy Who Cried Wolf" vulnerability. When the baseline social alarm system is constantly blaring false positives over trivial matters, society's ability to recognize and respond to a genuine, cascading systemic crisis is catastrophically degraded.
Mainstream social architectures are built to optimize engagement by exploiting these dark psychological traits. By rewarding outrage with visibility, algorithms allow malicious actors to manipulate the middle ground out of existence. They weaponize moral grandstanding to convert ordinary users into force multipliers for polarization.
Moving to decentralized spaces like Mastodon isn't just about escaping noise; it’s about choosing a platform architecture that refuses to incentivize moral grandstanding and Dark Tetrad manipulation. In cybersecurity, we rely on logs and objective data. We need to apply that same analytical discipline to how we evaluate and filter human behavior online.
#InfoSec #Cybersecurity #Psychology #Criminology #DarkTetrad #DarkTriad
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A dark triad or tetrarad exhibits 3 to 4 sets of signs that categorize them as such. You may interact with people in your life who fit these categories. If you do, it might be best not to. #darktriad #darktetrad
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this is important enough won’t yadda yadda: this is #sociopath Stephen Miller upping the ante for the #DemocraticParty #machiavellians : he wants the party designated a domestic #terrorist group.
knowing what i know of the Democratic Party machiavellians like Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, they truly believe letting the GOP go full fascist will make them win elections.
yes, they’re that deluded.
and all of us outside this #DarkTetrad psychosociological #dystopia lose this game of chicken.
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@stalbaum @randahl
#DemocracyInAStranglehold
(2/n)...happened in the country of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, are long overdue.
The #US must come to a standstill, the other beaches of government will not be able to reign in their #DarkTetrad brother, the #Excecutive branch."if #Trump wants his play at history of being the next #GeorgeBush II, someone said something once about history repeating itself,..."
In my view, #History never repeats itself. It is Chaotic in a systems-theory meaning:
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#MidleEastWar #Israel #Iran #USA #USpol
This is an interesting perspective, /s: however with the leaders of the 4 biggest nations, all of which are ruthless narcicists, at least one of which is even a #DarkTetrad, and a #Sociopath, who is the figure head of a decades long political coup, who has all but obliterated the democratic system of checks and balances and, possibly soon, even the separation of powers, and who controls the mightiest army in history,...does it still matter? /s
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Guess whose social media app broadcast live the #homicide of a political hopeful, woman, a mayoral candidate in #mexico ?
Clearly a paid hit, orchestrated by the #DarkTetrad CEO of Facebook himself, presumably to prop up his failing company;
never underestimate someone who has all 4 of the Dark Tetrad characteristics.
And a very bad shopping addiction.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mexican-mayoral-candidate-gunned-down-204329065.html
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@_9CL7T9k8cjnD_ @HistoPol
And, according to some, Dark Tetrad + spitefulness = Dark Pentad
#DarkTetrad #DarkPentad -
No, not quite. - If you check into the #Atlantic article, a #DarkTriad becomes a #DarkTetrad if a person also is a #Sadist, too.
In other words, a #DarkTriad will be a subset of a #DarkTetrad, but not all #DarkTriads (quite a few, actually) will be #DarkTetrads, too. ,)
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Donald Trump viewed as higher in Dark Tetrad traits than Joe Biden, study finds https://www.psypost.org/donald-trump-viewed-as-higher-in-dark-tetrad-traits-than-joe-biden-study-finds/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #DonaldTrump #JoeBiden #DarkTetrad #Psychology #Election2020
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New psychology research reveals differences in fertility outcomes linked toDark Tetrad traits in criminal populations https://www.psypost.org/fertility-outcomes-differ-among-dark-tetrad-traits-in-criminal-populations/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #Psychology #Research #Fertility #CriminalBehavior #DarkTetrad
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I don't think that Netanyahu takes his orders from Putler. He's "merely" protecting himself from litigation (being a #DarkTetrad does come in handy in this situation, too.)
Assasinating the democratically *elected* leader of an allied nation would be another league beyond Nixon, I'd say.
Like I said earlier, not giving the Netanyahu Regime all they want (intel from #NATO E-3A AWACS? airplane parts? bombs? etc.) will not swing the election, IMHO. This, in my view,
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Economist Steve Hanke: Research Finds Crypto Owners Are Psychopaths - Economist Steve Hanke cited a University of Toronto study that links cryptocurrenc... - https://news.bitcoin.com/economist-steve-hanke-research-finds-crypto-owners-are-psychopaths/ #universityoftoronto #cryptocurrency #digitalassets #personality #psychopaths #psychopathy #darktetrad #narcissism #stevehanke #economist #featured #analysis #findings #research #crypto #traits #study
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"Er muss erstmal erkennen was er falsch gemacht hat und dann in einem dunklen Büro viele Jahre mit Opfern von Gewalt verbringen, nachdem er die Auswirkungen und das Mitgefühl bekommt für die Grausamkeit die er gemacht hat."
Du hast hier m.E. ein zu positives Menschenbild. M.E. gehört diese Art Täter aus psychologischer Sicht zu den
#DarkTriad|s bzw. sogar den #DarkTetrad|s1) und die sind "beyond repair" aus meiner Sicht.1)
Sh Artikellink hier:
https://mastodon.social/@HistoPol/112767351744675253 -
#Trump's #SecretaryOfRetribution
Me, too.
Did you see Ivan's bio (2nd link?) --He's also extremely competent.IMO, both TFG and Ivan are Dark Tetrads 1) They relish making others suffer who oppose them.
If #TFG regains power by re-entering the White House in 2025, he will carry out his repeated threats. With Ivan's professional background and preparations, this will be done highly effectively.
1)
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/dark-triads-toxic-personalities/675683/No PW:
https://archive.md/NjmrS -
crypto-currency ownership associated with conspiracy theories, political extremism, and "Dark Tetrad" of personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, sadism) #DarkTetrad #ConspiracyTheories #extremism https://phys.org/news/2024-07-cryptocurrency-investors-dark-tetrad-personality.html
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"The most powerful people, and notably the most monstrous, are not conspicuously intelligent, at least not in the sense measured by IQ...
Success in gaining power seems to depend instead on extreme Dark Tetrad traits (psychopathy, narcissism, machiavellianism, and sadism). That’s moral idiocy, not any sort of intelligence. Maybe we should be more concerned with AI developing superhuman dark tetrad traits than superintelligence."
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all machiavellians need to be shot into the mouth of an active volcano.
each and every one of them.
they are worse than narcissists, sociopaths and sadists... COMBINED.