#malevolentcreativity — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #malevolentcreativity, aggregated by home.social.
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DATE: September 11, 2026 at 08:00AM
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 surprising link between prosocial motivation and dark creativity
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-rejection-and-neglect-fuel-dark-creativity/
Being actively rejected and being silently ignored both cause social pain, but they trigger entirely different forms of dark creativity. A recent series of psychological experiments reveals that people who feel ignored generate highly malicious ideas, while those who feel rejected come up with a higher volume of creative ideas that are less harmful. The research was published in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.
Creativity is usually viewed as a positive trait that drives innovation and problem solving. When people use divergent thinking to materially, mentally, or physically harm others, psychologists refer to this as malevolent creativity. The products of this dark imagination combine harmful intent with novelty, making them dangerous, difficult to detect, and hard to anticipate.
People often resort to malevolent creativity when they face threatening or unfair situations in their daily lives. Social exclusion is one common trigger, causing emotional pain that can lead to antisocial reactions. Psychologists have found that individuals use malevolent creativity as a defense mechanism to cope with social threats.
Not all forms of social exclusion are the same. Explicit rejection is a direct action that threatens a person’s fundamental need to belong to a group. In contrast, being ignored or given the silent treatment is more indirect. This implicit exclusion threatens a person’s sense of control and efficacy. According to psychological models of social behavior, people adjust their responses based on which specific psychological need is threatened.
Psychologist Junsheng Wu and a research team from Ningbo University in China wanted to understand how these distinct social threats shape dark creativity. The researchers suspected that the two types of exclusion would alter a person’s desire to help others, known as prosocial motivation, in entirely different ways. They designed a series of independent experiments to test how this motivation bridges the gap between social pain and creative revenge.
The research team conducted three distinct experiments to establish a chain of cause and effect. In the first experiment, the researchers randomly assigned 120 college students to one of three groups. They asked the participants to spend five minutes writing a detailed account of a specific memory. One group wrote about a time they felt intensely rejected and were told they were not wanted. A second group wrote about a time they were ignored, but not explicitly told they were disliked. A third control group recalled a mundane event from the previous day.
After the writing exercise, the participants completed a test designed to measure malevolent creativity. The prompt asked the students to imagine a scenario involving a romantic rival who made them angry. They were instructed to generate as many creative ideas for revenge as possible, regardless of how immoral the ideas might be.
Independent raters scored the anonymous written responses based on three distinct metrics. They measured fluency by counting the number of appropriate ideas generated. They measured originality by looking at the statistical rarity of the ideas compared to the rest of the group. Finally, they assigned a score based on the sheer malevolence or harmfulness of the proposed revenge.
The researchers observed distinct responses from the two socially excluded groups. The rejected group produced a higher quantity of unique ideas, but those ideas were relatively low in actual malice. The ignored group generated fewer ideas with less originality, but their responses scored much higher on the malevolence scale.
A second experiment investigated whether these differences stemmed from a shift in prosocial motivation. The researchers recruited 110 students and used the same memory writing exercise to prime feelings of explicit rejection, being ignored, or a neutral baseline state.
Instead of brainstorming revenge tactics, the participants rated their willingness to donate to a hypothetical curbside fundraiser on a scale from one to seven. This rating served as a proxy for their prosocial motivation. People with higher scores exhibited a stronger drive to act positively toward others.
The results showed that the rejected group reported the highest willingness to donate. The ignored group reported the lowest willingness to donate, falling well below the baseline of the control group. The authors suggest that explicit rejection prompts a desire to reconnect and regain social approval, whereas being ignored triggers self-protective and antisocial tendencies.
The third experiment tested whether prosocial motivation directly alters malevolent creativity. The researchers randomly assigned 67 students to either a control group or a priming group. The priming group wrote a detailed account of a past event where they helped someone, which elevated their prosocial motivation. The control group did not complete a memory writing task.
All participants then completed the same revenge-based brainstorming task used in the first experiment. The researchers scored the answers using the identical three metrics of fluency, originality, and malevolence.
Participants primed with prosocial motivation generated a higher volume of creative ideas, and those ideas were highly original. However, the actual harm intended in their ideas was measurably lower than the ideas produced by the control group.
The researchers concluded that a desire to help others plays a dual role in shaping behavior. A prosocial drive provides the mental energy and persistence needed for creative tasks, elevating fluency and novelty. At the same time, this motivation actively restrains the urge to cause severe harm, leading to a drop in actual malevolence.
The researchers note a few limitations to the experimental design. Measuring malevolent creativity by separating it into distinct facets of fluency, novelty, and malevolence might not fully capture the combined nature of the concept. A single composite score that fuses novelty and harm might provide a more accurate picture of real-world dark creativity.
The experiments also did not directly measure the emotional arousal levels of the participants. Heightened negative emotions might fuel the cognitive persistence needed for creative brainstorming, entirely separate from prosocial motivation. Future studies will need to track multiple emotional and motivational pathways simultaneously to map exactly how social threats translate into aggressive innovation.
The study, “The Impact of Social Exclusion on Malevolent Creativity: The Mediating Role of Prosocial Motivation,” was authored by Junsheng Wu, Xiao Rao, Jiabin Liu, Shuaijun You, Yang Cao, and Lan Jiao.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-rejection-and-neglect-fuel-dark-creativity/
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ProsocialMotivation #MalevolentCreativity #DarkCreativity #SocialExclusion #RejectionVsIgnore #CreativeRevenge #ProsocialBehavior #CreativityResearch #MentalHealthPsychology #InnovationAndEthics
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DATE: September 11, 2026 at 08:00AM
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 surprising link between prosocial motivation and dark creativity
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-rejection-and-neglect-fuel-dark-creativity/
Being actively rejected and being silently ignored both cause social pain, but they trigger entirely different forms of dark creativity. A recent series of psychological experiments reveals that people who feel ignored generate highly malicious ideas, while those who feel rejected come up with a higher volume of creative ideas that are less harmful. The research was published in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.
Creativity is usually viewed as a positive trait that drives innovation and problem solving. When people use divergent thinking to materially, mentally, or physically harm others, psychologists refer to this as malevolent creativity. The products of this dark imagination combine harmful intent with novelty, making them dangerous, difficult to detect, and hard to anticipate.
People often resort to malevolent creativity when they face threatening or unfair situations in their daily lives. Social exclusion is one common trigger, causing emotional pain that can lead to antisocial reactions. Psychologists have found that individuals use malevolent creativity as a defense mechanism to cope with social threats.
Not all forms of social exclusion are the same. Explicit rejection is a direct action that threatens a person’s fundamental need to belong to a group. In contrast, being ignored or given the silent treatment is more indirect. This implicit exclusion threatens a person’s sense of control and efficacy. According to psychological models of social behavior, people adjust their responses based on which specific psychological need is threatened.
Psychologist Junsheng Wu and a research team from Ningbo University in China wanted to understand how these distinct social threats shape dark creativity. The researchers suspected that the two types of exclusion would alter a person’s desire to help others, known as prosocial motivation, in entirely different ways. They designed a series of independent experiments to test how this motivation bridges the gap between social pain and creative revenge.
The research team conducted three distinct experiments to establish a chain of cause and effect. In the first experiment, the researchers randomly assigned 120 college students to one of three groups. They asked the participants to spend five minutes writing a detailed account of a specific memory. One group wrote about a time they felt intensely rejected and were told they were not wanted. A second group wrote about a time they were ignored, but not explicitly told they were disliked. A third control group recalled a mundane event from the previous day.
After the writing exercise, the participants completed a test designed to measure malevolent creativity. The prompt asked the students to imagine a scenario involving a romantic rival who made them angry. They were instructed to generate as many creative ideas for revenge as possible, regardless of how immoral the ideas might be.
Independent raters scored the anonymous written responses based on three distinct metrics. They measured fluency by counting the number of appropriate ideas generated. They measured originality by looking at the statistical rarity of the ideas compared to the rest of the group. Finally, they assigned a score based on the sheer malevolence or harmfulness of the proposed revenge.
The researchers observed distinct responses from the two socially excluded groups. The rejected group produced a higher quantity of unique ideas, but those ideas were relatively low in actual malice. The ignored group generated fewer ideas with less originality, but their responses scored much higher on the malevolence scale.
A second experiment investigated whether these differences stemmed from a shift in prosocial motivation. The researchers recruited 110 students and used the same memory writing exercise to prime feelings of explicit rejection, being ignored, or a neutral baseline state.
Instead of brainstorming revenge tactics, the participants rated their willingness to donate to a hypothetical curbside fundraiser on a scale from one to seven. This rating served as a proxy for their prosocial motivation. People with higher scores exhibited a stronger drive to act positively toward others.
The results showed that the rejected group reported the highest willingness to donate. The ignored group reported the lowest willingness to donate, falling well below the baseline of the control group. The authors suggest that explicit rejection prompts a desire to reconnect and regain social approval, whereas being ignored triggers self-protective and antisocial tendencies.
The third experiment tested whether prosocial motivation directly alters malevolent creativity. The researchers randomly assigned 67 students to either a control group or a priming group. The priming group wrote a detailed account of a past event where they helped someone, which elevated their prosocial motivation. The control group did not complete a memory writing task.
All participants then completed the same revenge-based brainstorming task used in the first experiment. The researchers scored the answers using the identical three metrics of fluency, originality, and malevolence.
Participants primed with prosocial motivation generated a higher volume of creative ideas, and those ideas were highly original. However, the actual harm intended in their ideas was measurably lower than the ideas produced by the control group.
The researchers concluded that a desire to help others plays a dual role in shaping behavior. A prosocial drive provides the mental energy and persistence needed for creative tasks, elevating fluency and novelty. At the same time, this motivation actively restrains the urge to cause severe harm, leading to a drop in actual malevolence.
The researchers note a few limitations to the experimental design. Measuring malevolent creativity by separating it into distinct facets of fluency, novelty, and malevolence might not fully capture the combined nature of the concept. A single composite score that fuses novelty and harm might provide a more accurate picture of real-world dark creativity.
The experiments also did not directly measure the emotional arousal levels of the participants. Heightened negative emotions might fuel the cognitive persistence needed for creative brainstorming, entirely separate from prosocial motivation. Future studies will need to track multiple emotional and motivational pathways simultaneously to map exactly how social threats translate into aggressive innovation.
The study, “The Impact of Social Exclusion on Malevolent Creativity: The Mediating Role of Prosocial Motivation,” was authored by Junsheng Wu, Xiao Rao, Jiabin Liu, Shuaijun You, Yang Cao, and Lan Jiao.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-rejection-and-neglect-fuel-dark-creativity/
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ProsocialMotivation #MalevolentCreativity #DarkCreativity #SocialExclusion #RejectionVsIgnore #CreativeRevenge #ProsocialBehavior #CreativityResearch #MentalHealthPsychology #InnovationAndEthics
-
DATE: September 11, 2026 at 08:00AM
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 surprising link between prosocial motivation and dark creativity
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-rejection-and-neglect-fuel-dark-creativity/
Being actively rejected and being silently ignored both cause social pain, but they trigger entirely different forms of dark creativity. A recent series of psychological experiments reveals that people who feel ignored generate highly malicious ideas, while those who feel rejected come up with a higher volume of creative ideas that are less harmful. The research was published in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts.
Creativity is usually viewed as a positive trait that drives innovation and problem solving. When people use divergent thinking to materially, mentally, or physically harm others, psychologists refer to this as malevolent creativity. The products of this dark imagination combine harmful intent with novelty, making them dangerous, difficult to detect, and hard to anticipate.
People often resort to malevolent creativity when they face threatening or unfair situations in their daily lives. Social exclusion is one common trigger, causing emotional pain that can lead to antisocial reactions. Psychologists have found that individuals use malevolent creativity as a defense mechanism to cope with social threats.
Not all forms of social exclusion are the same. Explicit rejection is a direct action that threatens a person’s fundamental need to belong to a group. In contrast, being ignored or given the silent treatment is more indirect. This implicit exclusion threatens a person’s sense of control and efficacy. According to psychological models of social behavior, people adjust their responses based on which specific psychological need is threatened.
Psychologist Junsheng Wu and a research team from Ningbo University in China wanted to understand how these distinct social threats shape dark creativity. The researchers suspected that the two types of exclusion would alter a person’s desire to help others, known as prosocial motivation, in entirely different ways. They designed a series of independent experiments to test how this motivation bridges the gap between social pain and creative revenge.
The research team conducted three distinct experiments to establish a chain of cause and effect. In the first experiment, the researchers randomly assigned 120 college students to one of three groups. They asked the participants to spend five minutes writing a detailed account of a specific memory. One group wrote about a time they felt intensely rejected and were told they were not wanted. A second group wrote about a time they were ignored, but not explicitly told they were disliked. A third control group recalled a mundane event from the previous day.
After the writing exercise, the participants completed a test designed to measure malevolent creativity. The prompt asked the students to imagine a scenario involving a romantic rival who made them angry. They were instructed to generate as many creative ideas for revenge as possible, regardless of how immoral the ideas might be.
Independent raters scored the anonymous written responses based on three distinct metrics. They measured fluency by counting the number of appropriate ideas generated. They measured originality by looking at the statistical rarity of the ideas compared to the rest of the group. Finally, they assigned a score based on the sheer malevolence or harmfulness of the proposed revenge.
The researchers observed distinct responses from the two socially excluded groups. The rejected group produced a higher quantity of unique ideas, but those ideas were relatively low in actual malice. The ignored group generated fewer ideas with less originality, but their responses scored much higher on the malevolence scale.
A second experiment investigated whether these differences stemmed from a shift in prosocial motivation. The researchers recruited 110 students and used the same memory writing exercise to prime feelings of explicit rejection, being ignored, or a neutral baseline state.
Instead of brainstorming revenge tactics, the participants rated their willingness to donate to a hypothetical curbside fundraiser on a scale from one to seven. This rating served as a proxy for their prosocial motivation. People with higher scores exhibited a stronger drive to act positively toward others.
The results showed that the rejected group reported the highest willingness to donate. The ignored group reported the lowest willingness to donate, falling well below the baseline of the control group. The authors suggest that explicit rejection prompts a desire to reconnect and regain social approval, whereas being ignored triggers self-protective and antisocial tendencies.
The third experiment tested whether prosocial motivation directly alters malevolent creativity. The researchers randomly assigned 67 students to either a control group or a priming group. The priming group wrote a detailed account of a past event where they helped someone, which elevated their prosocial motivation. The control group did not complete a memory writing task.
All participants then completed the same revenge-based brainstorming task used in the first experiment. The researchers scored the answers using the identical three metrics of fluency, originality, and malevolence.
Participants primed with prosocial motivation generated a higher volume of creative ideas, and those ideas were highly original. However, the actual harm intended in their ideas was measurably lower than the ideas produced by the control group.
The researchers concluded that a desire to help others plays a dual role in shaping behavior. A prosocial drive provides the mental energy and persistence needed for creative tasks, elevating fluency and novelty. At the same time, this motivation actively restrains the urge to cause severe harm, leading to a drop in actual malevolence.
The researchers note a few limitations to the experimental design. Measuring malevolent creativity by separating it into distinct facets of fluency, novelty, and malevolence might not fully capture the combined nature of the concept. A single composite score that fuses novelty and harm might provide a more accurate picture of real-world dark creativity.
The experiments also did not directly measure the emotional arousal levels of the participants. Heightened negative emotions might fuel the cognitive persistence needed for creative brainstorming, entirely separate from prosocial motivation. Future studies will need to track multiple emotional and motivational pathways simultaneously to map exactly how social threats translate into aggressive innovation.
The study, “The Impact of Social Exclusion on Malevolent Creativity: The Mediating Role of Prosocial Motivation,” was authored by Junsheng Wu, Xiao Rao, Jiabin Liu, Shuaijun You, Yang Cao, and Lan Jiao.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/how-rejection-and-neglect-fuel-dark-creativity/
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #ProsocialMotivation #MalevolentCreativity #DarkCreativity #SocialExclusion #RejectionVsIgnore #CreativeRevenge #ProsocialBehavior #CreativityResearch #MentalHealthPsychology #InnovationAndEthics
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DATE: September 8, 2026 at 10:00AM
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: People with narcissistic traits generate more original and malicious ideas for revenge, study finds
People who have previously used their imagination to harm others or who possess highly narcissistic traits tend to generate more original and malicious ideas for revenge. These findings indicate that past actions and personality shape how individuals apply their problem-solving skills during interpersonal conflicts. The research was published in The Journal of Intelligence.
Creativity is typically viewed as a positive force in society, driving art, science, and innovation. But creativity also has a dark side, known as malevolent creativity. This involves the application of original ideas to purposely harm, deceive, or manipulate others. It is essentially creative problem-solving with malicious intent, evident in everything from everyday pranks to complex criminal activities.
To understand why some people use their imagination for harm, psychologists often refer to a framework called the AMORAL model. This model suggests that dark creativity results from a combination of personal traits, such as a natural propensity for creativity or certain personality types, and environmental factors, such as a provoking situation.
Among personality types, the dark triad traits are particularly relevant. These include psychopathy (a lack of empathy and high impulsivity), Machiavellianism (a tendency to be strategic and manipulative), and narcissism (a sense of grandiosity, egocentrism, and a strong need for admiration). People high in narcissism tend to be especially reactive to social slights or threats to their ego. A 2021 meta-analysis found that among these dark traits, narcissism has the most consistent relationship with self-reported general creativity.
“Society generally views creativity as a good thing, but some people use their creativity to harm others,” Natalie Ceballos, a professor of psychology at Texas State University, told PsyPost. “I’m interested in the individual and environmental factors that might influence someone to steer their creativity toward antisocial ends.”
The current research, conducted by Ceballos alongside cognitive neuroscientist Carmen E. Westerberg and pre-med student Ruby N. Sweet, aimed to untangle how a person’s history of malicious behavior influences their current ability to devise revenge plots, above and beyond their everyday problem-solving skills and personality.
“We aimed to determine what factors are most relevant for understanding when creative people may use their skills for nefarious purposes,” Ceballos said. “Studies have shown that the dark triad personality traits predict malevolently creative ideology, but how other factors like history of creative malevolence or reaction to acute provocation might interact with dark triad traits is an area that requires further research.”
The research team recruited 248 undergraduate students for an online survey. The participants were predominantly young women, with an average age of 20. First, the students answered questions about their demographics and rated their own potential for everyday creative problem-solving on a simple five-point scale.
Next, participants completed a questionnaire assessing their past malevolent creativity. They rated how often they had engaged in behaviors like fabricating lies to simplify a problem, thinking up ways to take revenge, or playing tricks on others. They also completed a standard personality test to measure their levels of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism.
To measure malicious ideation in real time, the researchers used a task built around a hypothetical conflict. Participants read a vignette in which a neighbor asked for help with apartment renovations and promised to pay them. In the scenario, the participant does the work, but the neighbor later denies that any agreement took place and refuses to pay. The participants were instructed to type out as many original ideas as possible to get back at the neighbor.
“Some of the participants’ ideas were malevolent but not very creative, like simply physically assaulting the neighbor,” Ceballos noted. “Other ideas, like seeding the neighbor’s lawn with invasive plants, were more original and showed an appreciation for the long game.”
After generating their ideas, the students rated how provoked they would feel if the situation happened in real life. Two independent raters then evaluated the participants’ responses. They calculated a fluency index, which was the total number of malicious ideas generated. They also calculated a malevolence index, counting ideas that were rated as at least slightly harmful, and a composite score, which only counted ideas that were both harmful and highly original.
The researchers found that different personal factors predicted different types of creative output. A participant’s self-perception of their everyday problem-solving skills predicted their fluency index. People who viewed themselves as good at solving regular problems came up with a larger quantity of revenge ideas, regardless of how original or harmful those ideas actually were.
When it came to the quality of the revenge ideas, personality and past behavior played a larger role. High levels of narcissism and a history of past malevolent behavior predicted both the malevolence index and the overall composite score. This means that individuals who were highly narcissistic or who had a habit of playing tricks and seeking revenge in the past generated ideas that were more harmful and more unique.
Interestingly, past malevolent behavior contributed to the generation of harmful and original ideas independently of everyday problem-solving skills and narcissistic traits. While feeling provoked by the scenario correlated with generating darker ideas, the level of provocation did not uniquely predict the task outcomes once past behavior and personality were factored into the statistical models. Psychopathy and Machiavellianism also did not emerge as unique predictors in the final analyses.
“We were a bit surprised that provocation level didn’t have a larger effect on malevolent creativity,” Ceballos said. “In our study, it appears that past behaviors and personality traits were more closely tied to malevolently creative ideation.”
The findings align with research covered by PsyPost in 2023, which found that dark personality traits and a history of malicious actions relate to generating novel ways to harm others. They also fit with a 2021 study covered by PsyPost indicating that narcissism helps explain variations in malevolent creativity, though the new study specifically measured idea generation in real time rather than just relying on general behavioral tendencies.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study relied on a cross-sectional design, meaning the data was collected at a single point in time. Because of this, the researchers cannot determine cause and effect. It is not possible to say that past malicious behavior directly causes a person to generate better revenge ideas today, only that the two are associated.
The participant pool also consisted mostly of female college students in the United States. The results might not generalize to older adults, men, or people from different cultural backgrounds, especially since dark personality traits often vary across age and gender. Additionally, the study relied on self-reports for past bad behavior, which can be skewed if participants want to present themselves in a positive light.
The measure for everyday creativity was also based on a single question, which might not capture the full scope of a person’s creative abilities.
“What leads a person to use their creative abilities to harm others? I think the take-home message is that a complex mixture of personality, lived experiences, and current circumstances all come together to create a perfect storm of malevolent creativity,” Ceballos explained. “Our study included only a small subset of the factors that might contribute to malevolent creativity. A lot of open questions remain for future work, but our results suggest that it’s not a simple explanation.”
For instance, future studies could track people over time to see if a habit of malicious creativity builds on itself through positive reinforcement, eventually creating an automatic cognitive strategy for dealing with conflict.
“My collaborators and I have backgrounds in neuroscience, so our natural next step involves the exploration of potential neurophysiological correlates of malevolent creativity,” Ceballos said. “We’re particularly interested in how different kinds of acute and chronic stress, and even factors like sleep quality, might influence malevolent creativity and which therapeutic strategies might help to reduce negative outcomes.”
The study, “Self-Reports of Past Malevolent Behavior and Narcissism as Predictors of Malevolent Creativity on a Real-World Ideation Task,” was authored by Natalie A. Ceballos, Ruby N. Sweet, and Carmen E. Westerberg.
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MalevolentCreativity #Narcissism #DarkTriad #RevengeIdeas #CreativeProblemSolving #PsychologyResearch #AMORALModel #DarkPersonalityTraits #MalevolentBehavior #IdeationTask
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DATE: September 8, 2026 at 10:00AM
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: People with narcissistic traits generate more original and malicious ideas for revenge, study finds
People who have previously used their imagination to harm others or who possess highly narcissistic traits tend to generate more original and malicious ideas for revenge. These findings indicate that past actions and personality shape how individuals apply their problem-solving skills during interpersonal conflicts. The research was published in The Journal of Intelligence.
Creativity is typically viewed as a positive force in society, driving art, science, and innovation. But creativity also has a dark side, known as malevolent creativity. This involves the application of original ideas to purposely harm, deceive, or manipulate others. It is essentially creative problem-solving with malicious intent, evident in everything from everyday pranks to complex criminal activities.
To understand why some people use their imagination for harm, psychologists often refer to a framework called the AMORAL model. This model suggests that dark creativity results from a combination of personal traits, such as a natural propensity for creativity or certain personality types, and environmental factors, such as a provoking situation.
Among personality types, the dark triad traits are particularly relevant. These include psychopathy (a lack of empathy and high impulsivity), Machiavellianism (a tendency to be strategic and manipulative), and narcissism (a sense of grandiosity, egocentrism, and a strong need for admiration). People high in narcissism tend to be especially reactive to social slights or threats to their ego. A 2021 meta-analysis found that among these dark traits, narcissism has the most consistent relationship with self-reported general creativity.
“Society generally views creativity as a good thing, but some people use their creativity to harm others,” Natalie Ceballos, a professor of psychology at Texas State University, told PsyPost. “I’m interested in the individual and environmental factors that might influence someone to steer their creativity toward antisocial ends.”
The current research, conducted by Ceballos alongside cognitive neuroscientist Carmen E. Westerberg and pre-med student Ruby N. Sweet, aimed to untangle how a person’s history of malicious behavior influences their current ability to devise revenge plots, above and beyond their everyday problem-solving skills and personality.
“We aimed to determine what factors are most relevant for understanding when creative people may use their skills for nefarious purposes,” Ceballos said. “Studies have shown that the dark triad personality traits predict malevolently creative ideology, but how other factors like history of creative malevolence or reaction to acute provocation might interact with dark triad traits is an area that requires further research.”
The research team recruited 248 undergraduate students for an online survey. The participants were predominantly young women, with an average age of 20. First, the students answered questions about their demographics and rated their own potential for everyday creative problem-solving on a simple five-point scale.
Next, participants completed a questionnaire assessing their past malevolent creativity. They rated how often they had engaged in behaviors like fabricating lies to simplify a problem, thinking up ways to take revenge, or playing tricks on others. They also completed a standard personality test to measure their levels of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism.
To measure malicious ideation in real time, the researchers used a task built around a hypothetical conflict. Participants read a vignette in which a neighbor asked for help with apartment renovations and promised to pay them. In the scenario, the participant does the work, but the neighbor later denies that any agreement took place and refuses to pay. The participants were instructed to type out as many original ideas as possible to get back at the neighbor.
“Some of the participants’ ideas were malevolent but not very creative, like simply physically assaulting the neighbor,” Ceballos noted. “Other ideas, like seeding the neighbor’s lawn with invasive plants, were more original and showed an appreciation for the long game.”
After generating their ideas, the students rated how provoked they would feel if the situation happened in real life. Two independent raters then evaluated the participants’ responses. They calculated a fluency index, which was the total number of malicious ideas generated. They also calculated a malevolence index, counting ideas that were rated as at least slightly harmful, and a composite score, which only counted ideas that were both harmful and highly original.
The researchers found that different personal factors predicted different types of creative output. A participant’s self-perception of their everyday problem-solving skills predicted their fluency index. People who viewed themselves as good at solving regular problems came up with a larger quantity of revenge ideas, regardless of how original or harmful those ideas actually were.
When it came to the quality of the revenge ideas, personality and past behavior played a larger role. High levels of narcissism and a history of past malevolent behavior predicted both the malevolence index and the overall composite score. This means that individuals who were highly narcissistic or who had a habit of playing tricks and seeking revenge in the past generated ideas that were more harmful and more unique.
Interestingly, past malevolent behavior contributed to the generation of harmful and original ideas independently of everyday problem-solving skills and narcissistic traits. While feeling provoked by the scenario correlated with generating darker ideas, the level of provocation did not uniquely predict the task outcomes once past behavior and personality were factored into the statistical models. Psychopathy and Machiavellianism also did not emerge as unique predictors in the final analyses.
“We were a bit surprised that provocation level didn’t have a larger effect on malevolent creativity,” Ceballos said. “In our study, it appears that past behaviors and personality traits were more closely tied to malevolently creative ideation.”
The findings align with research covered by PsyPost in 2023, which found that dark personality traits and a history of malicious actions relate to generating novel ways to harm others. They also fit with a 2021 study covered by PsyPost indicating that narcissism helps explain variations in malevolent creativity, though the new study specifically measured idea generation in real time rather than just relying on general behavioral tendencies.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study relied on a cross-sectional design, meaning the data was collected at a single point in time. Because of this, the researchers cannot determine cause and effect. It is not possible to say that past malicious behavior directly causes a person to generate better revenge ideas today, only that the two are associated.
The participant pool also consisted mostly of female college students in the United States. The results might not generalize to older adults, men, or people from different cultural backgrounds, especially since dark personality traits often vary across age and gender. Additionally, the study relied on self-reports for past bad behavior, which can be skewed if participants want to present themselves in a positive light.
The measure for everyday creativity was also based on a single question, which might not capture the full scope of a person’s creative abilities.
“What leads a person to use their creative abilities to harm others? I think the take-home message is that a complex mixture of personality, lived experiences, and current circumstances all come together to create a perfect storm of malevolent creativity,” Ceballos explained. “Our study included only a small subset of the factors that might contribute to malevolent creativity. A lot of open questions remain for future work, but our results suggest that it’s not a simple explanation.”
For instance, future studies could track people over time to see if a habit of malicious creativity builds on itself through positive reinforcement, eventually creating an automatic cognitive strategy for dealing with conflict.
“My collaborators and I have backgrounds in neuroscience, so our natural next step involves the exploration of potential neurophysiological correlates of malevolent creativity,” Ceballos said. “We’re particularly interested in how different kinds of acute and chronic stress, and even factors like sleep quality, might influence malevolent creativity and which therapeutic strategies might help to reduce negative outcomes.”
The study, “Self-Reports of Past Malevolent Behavior and Narcissism as Predictors of Malevolent Creativity on a Real-World Ideation Task,” was authored by Natalie A. Ceballos, Ruby N. Sweet, and Carmen E. Westerberg.
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DATE: September 8, 2026 at 10:00AM
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: People with narcissistic traits generate more original and malicious ideas for revenge, study finds
People who have previously used their imagination to harm others or who possess highly narcissistic traits tend to generate more original and malicious ideas for revenge. These findings indicate that past actions and personality shape how individuals apply their problem-solving skills during interpersonal conflicts. The research was published in The Journal of Intelligence.
Creativity is typically viewed as a positive force in society, driving art, science, and innovation. But creativity also has a dark side, known as malevolent creativity. This involves the application of original ideas to purposely harm, deceive, or manipulate others. It is essentially creative problem-solving with malicious intent, evident in everything from everyday pranks to complex criminal activities.
To understand why some people use their imagination for harm, psychologists often refer to a framework called the AMORAL model. This model suggests that dark creativity results from a combination of personal traits, such as a natural propensity for creativity or certain personality types, and environmental factors, such as a provoking situation.
Among personality types, the dark triad traits are particularly relevant. These include psychopathy (a lack of empathy and high impulsivity), Machiavellianism (a tendency to be strategic and manipulative), and narcissism (a sense of grandiosity, egocentrism, and a strong need for admiration). People high in narcissism tend to be especially reactive to social slights or threats to their ego. A 2021 meta-analysis found that among these dark traits, narcissism has the most consistent relationship with self-reported general creativity.
“Society generally views creativity as a good thing, but some people use their creativity to harm others,” Natalie Ceballos, a professor of psychology at Texas State University, told PsyPost. “I’m interested in the individual and environmental factors that might influence someone to steer their creativity toward antisocial ends.”
The current research, conducted by Ceballos alongside cognitive neuroscientist Carmen E. Westerberg and pre-med student Ruby N. Sweet, aimed to untangle how a person’s history of malicious behavior influences their current ability to devise revenge plots, above and beyond their everyday problem-solving skills and personality.
“We aimed to determine what factors are most relevant for understanding when creative people may use their skills for nefarious purposes,” Ceballos said. “Studies have shown that the dark triad personality traits predict malevolently creative ideology, but how other factors like history of creative malevolence or reaction to acute provocation might interact with dark triad traits is an area that requires further research.”
The research team recruited 248 undergraduate students for an online survey. The participants were predominantly young women, with an average age of 20. First, the students answered questions about their demographics and rated their own potential for everyday creative problem-solving on a simple five-point scale.
Next, participants completed a questionnaire assessing their past malevolent creativity. They rated how often they had engaged in behaviors like fabricating lies to simplify a problem, thinking up ways to take revenge, or playing tricks on others. They also completed a standard personality test to measure their levels of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism.
To measure malicious ideation in real time, the researchers used a task built around a hypothetical conflict. Participants read a vignette in which a neighbor asked for help with apartment renovations and promised to pay them. In the scenario, the participant does the work, but the neighbor later denies that any agreement took place and refuses to pay. The participants were instructed to type out as many original ideas as possible to get back at the neighbor.
“Some of the participants’ ideas were malevolent but not very creative, like simply physically assaulting the neighbor,” Ceballos noted. “Other ideas, like seeding the neighbor’s lawn with invasive plants, were more original and showed an appreciation for the long game.”
After generating their ideas, the students rated how provoked they would feel if the situation happened in real life. Two independent raters then evaluated the participants’ responses. They calculated a fluency index, which was the total number of malicious ideas generated. They also calculated a malevolence index, counting ideas that were rated as at least slightly harmful, and a composite score, which only counted ideas that were both harmful and highly original.
The researchers found that different personal factors predicted different types of creative output. A participant’s self-perception of their everyday problem-solving skills predicted their fluency index. People who viewed themselves as good at solving regular problems came up with a larger quantity of revenge ideas, regardless of how original or harmful those ideas actually were.
When it came to the quality of the revenge ideas, personality and past behavior played a larger role. High levels of narcissism and a history of past malevolent behavior predicted both the malevolence index and the overall composite score. This means that individuals who were highly narcissistic or who had a habit of playing tricks and seeking revenge in the past generated ideas that were more harmful and more unique.
Interestingly, past malevolent behavior contributed to the generation of harmful and original ideas independently of everyday problem-solving skills and narcissistic traits. While feeling provoked by the scenario correlated with generating darker ideas, the level of provocation did not uniquely predict the task outcomes once past behavior and personality were factored into the statistical models. Psychopathy and Machiavellianism also did not emerge as unique predictors in the final analyses.
“We were a bit surprised that provocation level didn’t have a larger effect on malevolent creativity,” Ceballos said. “In our study, it appears that past behaviors and personality traits were more closely tied to malevolently creative ideation.”
The findings align with research covered by PsyPost in 2023, which found that dark personality traits and a history of malicious actions relate to generating novel ways to harm others. They also fit with a 2021 study covered by PsyPost indicating that narcissism helps explain variations in malevolent creativity, though the new study specifically measured idea generation in real time rather than just relying on general behavioral tendencies.
As with all research, there are a few things to keep in mind. The study relied on a cross-sectional design, meaning the data was collected at a single point in time. Because of this, the researchers cannot determine cause and effect. It is not possible to say that past malicious behavior directly causes a person to generate better revenge ideas today, only that the two are associated.
The participant pool also consisted mostly of female college students in the United States. The results might not generalize to older adults, men, or people from different cultural backgrounds, especially since dark personality traits often vary across age and gender. Additionally, the study relied on self-reports for past bad behavior, which can be skewed if participants want to present themselves in a positive light.
The measure for everyday creativity was also based on a single question, which might not capture the full scope of a person’s creative abilities.
“What leads a person to use their creative abilities to harm others? I think the take-home message is that a complex mixture of personality, lived experiences, and current circumstances all come together to create a perfect storm of malevolent creativity,” Ceballos explained. “Our study included only a small subset of the factors that might contribute to malevolent creativity. A lot of open questions remain for future work, but our results suggest that it’s not a simple explanation.”
For instance, future studies could track people over time to see if a habit of malicious creativity builds on itself through positive reinforcement, eventually creating an automatic cognitive strategy for dealing with conflict.
“My collaborators and I have backgrounds in neuroscience, so our natural next step involves the exploration of potential neurophysiological correlates of malevolent creativity,” Ceballos said. “We’re particularly interested in how different kinds of acute and chronic stress, and even factors like sleep quality, might influence malevolent creativity and which therapeutic strategies might help to reduce negative outcomes.”
The study, “Self-Reports of Past Malevolent Behavior and Narcissism as Predictors of Malevolent Creativity on a Real-World Ideation Task,” was authored by Natalie A. Ceballos, Ruby N. Sweet, and Carmen E. Westerberg.
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Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MalevolentCreativity #Narcissism #DarkTriad #RevengeIdeas #CreativeProblemSolving #PsychologyResearch #AMORALModel #DarkPersonalityTraits #MalevolentBehavior #IdeationTask
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Surprising link between childhood adversity and malevolent creativity revealed in new study https://www.psypost.org/surprising-link-between-childhood-adversity-and-malevolent-creativity-revealed-in-new-study/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #childhoodadversity #malevolentcreativity #psychology #empathy #socialsupport
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Surprising link between childhood adversity and malevolent creativity revealed in new study https://www.psypost.org/surprising-link-between-childhood-adversity-and-malevolent-creativity-revealed-in-new-study/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #childhoodadversity #malevolentcreativity #psychology #empathy #socialsupport
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Surprising link between childhood adversity and malevolent creativity revealed in new study https://www.psypost.org/surprising-link-between-childhood-adversity-and-malevolent-creativity-revealed-in-new-study/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon #childhoodadversity #malevolentcreativity #psychology #empathy #socialsupport
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A very interesting concept is that of #MalevolentCreativity (an also #NegativeCreativity)
The authors "argued that creativity has a dark side, in which outcomes are deliberately planned to damage others". In the Handbook of Research on Creativity.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260192273_Understanding_Malevolent_CreativityA book that explores the implications of this concept in depth is The Dark Side of Creativity edited by David H. Cropley et al. (2010).
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A very interesting concept is that of #MalevolentCreativity (an also #NegativeCreativity)
The authors "argued that creativity has a dark side, in which outcomes are deliberately planned to damage others". In the Handbook of Research on Creativity.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260192273_Understanding_Malevolent_CreativityA book that explores the implications of this concept in depth is The Dark Side of Creativity edited by David H. Cropley et al. (2010).
-
A very interesting concept is that of #MalevolentCreativity (an also #NegativeCreativity)
The authors "argued that creativity has a dark side, in which outcomes are deliberately planned to damage others". In the Handbook of Research on Creativity.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260192273_Understanding_Malevolent_CreativityA book that explores the implications of this concept in depth is The Dark Side of Creativity edited by David H. Cropley et al. (2010).
-
A very interesting concept is that of #MalevolentCreativity (an also #NegativeCreativity)
The authors "argued that creativity has a dark side, in which outcomes are deliberately planned to damage others". In the Handbook of Research on Creativity.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260192273_Understanding_Malevolent_CreativityA book that explores the implications of this concept in depth is The Dark Side of Creativity edited by David H. Cropley et al. (2010).