The Effect of Dark Triad Traits on Decision- Making Styles

The aim of present study was to explain the relationships of Dark Triad with decision-making styles. We assumed an association of decision-making styles with the Dark Triad traits that represent aversive personality traits, because previous studies identified relationships between the Dark Triad and the Big Five features and similarly, the relationships of the Big Five traits with decision-making styles have been confirmed. The research was conducted on a sample of 127 participants (M = 40.65 years; SD = 4.68). The sample consisted of 55.1% women (n = 70) and 44.9% men (n = 57). The data were subjected to correlation analysis and structural equation modeling. Machiavellianism correlated significantly positively with avoidant, dependent, and spontaneous decision-making styles. Narcissism correlated significantly positively with spontaneous decision-making style and significantly negatively with rational decision-making style. Psychopathy correlated significantly positively with avoidant and spontaneous decision-making style and significantly negatively with rational decision-making style. The value of the results lies in revealing what decision-making strategies are used by people with different socially aversive personality traits. Finding explanations for why some people use non-adaptive decision-making styles and experience the negative results of their decisions in real life, which cause their overall discomfort, can be explained by their dark features.

The reason why the concept of dark triad was created is that the negative personality traits like Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy had the attention of experts rather separately. This created a significant contrast to theories such as Big Five that conceptualizes single bright personality traits (Oluf & Furnham, 2015) into a certain system. Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy have no common origin in research.
According to the best authors´ knowledge, the personality characteristics associated with the Dark Triad concept share certain commonalities. Features of the Dark Triad are characterized as self-assertion, emotional coldness, aggression, lack of honesty and absence of humility, a socially malicious character with behavioral tendencies to support oneself and dishonesty (Lee & Ashton, 2014;Paulhus & Williams, 2002).
Machiavellianism is characterized by emotional separation and a tendency to manipulate in order to achieve one's own goal regardless of others (Al Aïn et al., 2013). Narcissism is characterized by exaggerated self-love, inflated self-confidence, a sense of importance and superiority over others, an extremely positive but at the same time vulnerable self-image (Morf & Rhodenwalt, 2001). Psychopathy is characterized by features such as high impulsivity, seeking excitement, low empathy, low anxiety (Paulhus & Williams, 2002), lack of concern for others, lack of guilt and remorse, and emotional shallowness (Forsyth & O´Boyle, 2012).
The concept of the Dark Triad represents personality traits occurring in the general population. These are maladaptive personality traits that have a negative impact in many ways on the experiencing and behavior of their possessors, but do not reach such a level that they are identified as personality disorders.
Psychopathy had a positive relationship with openness (Paulhus & Williams, 2002), a negative relationship with agreeableness (Jakobowitz & Egan, 2006;Malesza et al., 2019;Mejzlíková et al., 2018;Odiakosa, 2018;Paulhus & Williams, 2002;Vernon et al. al., 2008) and also negative with conscientiousness (Jakobowitz & Egan, 2006;Malesza et al., 2019;Mejzlíková et al., 2018;Paulhus & Williams, 2002;Vernon et al., 2008). The positive association of narcissism with extraversion points to the ability to engage in warm and friendly interpersonal relationships to a greater extent than in psychopathy and Machiavellianism. The negative association of psychopathy with conscientiousness reflects the uncontrolled, undisciplined, and impulsive behavior of individuals with this trait. The negative correlation of conscientiousness with Machiavellianism can be explained by the reluctance to conform to moral rules and values, which is common in individuals with this trait, despite their goal-oriented behavior, planning, and self-discipline (Muris et al., 2017).
The HEXACO model or the "Big Six" adds to the Big Five a dimension of honesty/humility, reflecting prosocial and antisocial behavior. People who have a higher rate of this factor are considered to be honest, fair and humble. The low rate of this factor reflects the characteristics of the Dark Triad, as all three traits are strongly associated with it (Lee & Ashton, 2014;Lyons, 2019).

Decision-making styles in personality context
There are two aspects to which the authors adhere when defining the decision-making style.
Some consider decision-making style to be a relatively stable characteristic of an individual that influences their perception of a particular situation and subsequent progress in the decision-making process (Harren, 1979). It is a response method that people use in decisionmaking situations and it depends on the specific situation, the task and the individual (Thunholm, 2004). On the other hand, there is an idea that decision-making style is a learned pattern of behavior used in a decision-making situation and does not represent a personality trait, but rather the habit of reacting in a certain way in a specific situation (Scott & Bruce, 1995). Like the definition, the labeling of decision-making styles is inconsistent in the literature. Scott and Bruce (1995) identified five different decision-making styles based on previous theoretical and empirical findings: The rational style is characterized by a logical and prudent approach consisting in an exhaustive search for information and evaluation of alternatives. Individuals using this style Psychological Thought 2021, Vol. 14(1), 74-93 South-West University "Neofit Rilski" https://doi.org/10.37708/psyct.v14i1.556 can recognize the consequences of their decisions. It is characterized by internal control, which indicates the awareness that the individual has the destiny in their own hands, and if a problem occurs, they tend to solve it. Individuals who tend to have an intuitive style pay attention to detail, are more open to alternatives when formulating a problem, and use imagination, feelings and impressions in their decision-making. They make their decisions quickly, without unnecessary thinking. A dependent style is typical for people seeking support and leadership from others, reflecting their uncertainty in their ability to make decisions, which testifies to the perception of external control over their fate. Avoidant style is associated with a rejection of personal responsibility for decision-making and a tendency to avoid it, whether by denying it or delaying it. People who tend to use this style when making decisions perceive external control of their fate. Spontaneous decision-making style is characteristic for those individuals who try to go through the entire decision-making process as quickly as possible and therefore make quick, urgent, and impulsive decisions (Harren, 1979;Scott & Bruce, 1995).

The present study
According to Scott and Bruce (1995), the relationship between the traits of the Dark Triad and the five decision-making styles has not been clearly elucidated in previous research findings. However, since the relationship of the Dark Triad with the Big Five dimensions has been confirmed in several studies (Jakobowitz & Egan, 2006;Malesza et al., 2019;Mejzlíková et al., 2018;Odiakosa, 2018;Paulhus & Williams, 2002;Vernon et al. , 2008) and similarly, the relationships of the Big Five dimensions with decision-making styles have been confirmed (Bavoľár, 2018;Avsec, 2012;Di Fabio & Kenny, 2012;Geisler & Allwood, 2013), Psychological Thought 2021, Vol. 14(1), 74-93 South-West University "Neofit Rilski" https://doi.org/10.37708/psyct.v14i1.556 there is an opportunity for finding connections between the Dark Triad traits and decisionmaking styles. These considerations are also supported by Bavoľár's (2018) assertion, who pointed out that rational and intuitive decision-making styles, perceived as adaptive strategies, are associated with the positive poles of Big Five personality traits, while avoidant and spontaneous decision-making styles are perceived as less adaptive associated with more negative shades of Big Five personality traits.
The aim of the research was to clarify the relationships of the features of the Dark Triad -Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy with decision-making styles -rational, intuitive, dependent, avoidant, and spontaneous. Then, the contribution of Dark triad traits to the variability of decision-making styles was examined.

Research question 1:
Are there any significant and strong relationships between Dark Triad traits and decisionmaking styles?

Research question 2:
Which trait of Dark Triad contributes to the variability of decision-making styles the most?

Sample
The survey involved 127 respondents. The sample consisted of 70 women (55.1%) and 57 men (44.9%). The age of the respondents ranged from 35 to 55 years. The average age of the respondents was 40.65 years (SD = 4.68), for women 40.50 (SD = 0.582) and for men 40.82 (SD = 0.592). Of the other demographic characteristics we surveyed, most respondents stated that they live in marriage (n = 85; 66.9%), most respondents had children (n = 94; 74%), the second degree of university education was also reported by the majority of respondents (n = 84; 66.1%). Convenience and purposive sampling method has been used.

Measures
Short Dark Triad (Čopková & Šafár, in review). The scale is a Slovak version based on the original Short Dark Triad (Jones & Paulhus, 2014). It consists of 27 items that saturate the three subscales -Machiavellianism (9 items; "Most people can be manipulated."), narcissism (9 items; "I insist on getting the respect I deserve.") and psychopathy (9 items; "I like to get Psychological Thought 2021, Vol. 14(1), 74-93 South-West University "Neofit Rilski" https://doi.org/10.37708/psyct.v14i1.556 revenge on authorities."). Each dimension consists of 9 items. The respondent responds on a 5-point likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree). For each of the subscales, the score is calculated separately as the sum of the points indicated by the respondent. There are 5 reverse coded items in the questionnaire, what must be reversed before calculating the final score. Internal consistency coefficients (Cronbach´s alpha) were α m = .772; α n = .739; α p = .679.

Procedure
The questionnaires were submitted to respondents in the period March 2020 -April 2020 in an electronic version created in the Google Docs-Form web application. Respondents were informed that completing the questionnaire is voluntary and anonymous and that data will only be processed in the framework of this research study. All respondents expressed their agreement to participate in the research. The collected data were analyzed in IBM SPSS Statistics 21 and IBM Amos 23 software.
There were no missing data in the dataset. Testing the normality of data distribution using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test showed that the data are normally distributed (p ≥ .05).
Descriptive indicators of the normality of data distribution indicated that the value of the skewness and kurtosis did not exceed the criterion > ± 1. The internal consistency was determined using Cronbach's alpha (Cronbach α). The obtained data were described using other descriptive indicators (mean, standard deviation). Relationships between variables were tested by Pearson correlation coefficient; complex relationships between variables were tested by structural equation modeling (SEM).

Results
With the first step of the analysis, was answered the question of what are the relationships between the features of the Dark Triad and the decision-making styles. Correlation analysis pointed to several significant relationships. The exact values of the correlation coefficients are given in Table 1  way. Therefore, a hypothetical model was created. It was assumed that the Dark Triad contributes the variance of decision-making styles. There were two latent variables in the model. The first was the Dark Triad, which has been found to be a global factor saturated by three manifest variables -Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy (Jones & Paulhus, 2014;Malesza et al., 2019;Salessi & Omar, 2018). The second latent variable was general decision-making styles, which were saturated by five manifest variables -rational, intuitive, dependent, avoidant and spontaneous decision-making style. According to Harren (1979) and Scott and Bruce (1995), an intuitive and rational decision-making style shares certainty in decision-making and taking responsibility for decisions. Dependent and rational decision-  The given result was considered to be relatively robust, therefore it was created a second hypothetical model. The second hypothetical model assumed the same relationships, but the latent variable Dark Triad was replaced by three manifest variables -Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. The covariance between these three variables was added because we still assumed that these features shared common elements (Lee & Ashton, 2014;Paulhus & Williams, 2002).
It was also analyzed the second hypothetical model using the Maximum likelihood method.
From the above results, it follows that decision-making styles are mostly associated with psychopathy out of all features of the Dark Triad.

Discussion
The primary goal of the present study was to explain the relationships of the features of the Dark Triad -Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy with decision-making stylesrational, intuitive, dependent, avoidant and spontaneous. It was of interest the extent to which the features of the Dark Triad contribute to the variability of decision-making styles. It was assumed that if previous studies identified relationships between the Dark Triad and the Big Five features (Jakobowitz & Egan, 2006;Malesza et al., 2019;Mejzlíková et al., 2018;Odiakosa, 2018;Paulhus & Williams, 2002;Vernon et al., 2008) and similarly, the relationships of the Big Five traits with decision-making styles have been confirmed (Avsec, 2012;Bavoľár, 2018;Di Fabio & Kenny, 2012;Geisler & Allwood, 2013), there should be an association with the Dark Triad traits that represent aversive personality traits.
Results showed that Machiavellian traits are associated with avoidant, dependent, and spontaneous decision-making styles. This result corresponds to the fact that Machiavellianism and dependent decision-making style have a positive relationship with neuroticism (Bavoľár, 2018;Jakobowitz & Egan, 2006;Vernon et al., 2008), which is characterized by emotional instability (Watson et al., 1988). Emotional instability itself in decision-making, for example, by uncertainty in the ability to make decisions and is South-West University "Neofit Rilski" https://doi.org/10.37708/psyct.v14i1.556 Egan, 2006;Vernon et al., 2008). These findings are supported by the fact that Machiavellians like to bend the rules (Wilson et al., 1996) and relinquish personal responsibility, which is also typical of avoidnat decision-making, where decisions are accompanied by anxiety and decision-making tension (Harren, 1979;Scott & Bruce , 1995).
The negative relationship with conscientiousness (Jakobowitz & Egan, 2006;Malesza et al., 2019;Paulhus & Williams, 2002;Vernon et al., 2008), which is characterized by selfdiscipline and adherence to rules (Paunonen & Ashton, 2001) corresponds to the reluctance of Machiavellians to adapt to moral rules and values despite their planned efforts to achieve goals (Muris et al., 2017). The tendency to avoid making decisions by denying or delaying this process (Harren, 1979;Scott & Bruce, 1995) and also the perception of external control of destiny is at odds with the nature of conscientiousness. Machiavellianism and spontaneous decision-making style associate a negative relationship with conscientiousness (Bavoľár, 2018;Jakobowitz & Egan, 2006;Malesza et al., 2019;Paulhus & Williams, 2002;Vernon et al., 2008), because spontaneous decision-making style consists of rapid and impulsive decisions (Harren, 1979;Scott & Bruce, 1995), which do not take into account rules that are often violated by Machiavellians (Wilson et al., 1996).
According to results, narcissistic traits are associated with spontaneous and irrational decision-making style in the opposite direction to rational, because we have identified a negative relationship between narcissism and rational decision-making style. Narcissism and spontaneous decision-making style have a positive relationship with extraversion (Bavoľár, 2018;Jakobowitz & Egan, 2006;Mejzlíková et al., 2018;Odiakosa, 2018;Paulhus & Williams, 2002;Jakobowitz & Egan, 2006). Extraversion is manifested by spontaneity, fast reactions, communicativeness, sociability, and fervor in relationships (Muris, et al., 2017;Watson & Clark 1997), which is also somewhat typical of narcissism because narcissists need to have a positive response from others, which would prove their own value (Morf & Rhodenwalt, 2001). Therefore, they are able to establish intensive relationships with other people very quickly. This information is a clear contrast to the rational decision-making process that is characterized by a prudent approach and consideration of the consequences of one's own actions (Harren, 1979;Scott & Bruce, 1995).
Psychopathy has shown positive relationships with avoidant, spontaneous and iracional decision-making styles. Psychopathy has a negative relationship to conscientiousness associated with avoidnat decision-making style as well (Jakobowitz & Egan, 2006;Malesza et al., 2019;Mejzlíková et al., 2018;Paulhus & Williams, 2002;Vernon et al., 2008). In avoidant decision-making, this is manifested by the postponement of decisions and the Psychological Thought 2021, Vol. 14(1), 74-93 South-West University "Neofit Rilski" https://doi.org/10.37708/psyct.v14i1.556 rejection of personal responsibility for decisions (Harren, 1979;Scott & Bruce, 1995), which corresponds to the absence of guilt or remorse in subclinical psychopaths (Forsyth & O'Boyle, 2012). Similarly, a negative relationship with conscientiousness is characteristic of psychopathy and spontaneous decision-making style, as subclinical psychopaths are characterized by their impulsivity and low anxiety (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Similar to narcissism, psychopathy is in conflict with the rational decision-making style, which is positively associated with conscientiousness and agreeableness (Bavoľár, 2018). Why subclinical psychopaths are not conscientious, we explained by their impulsivity (Muris et al., 2017), low agreeableness can be explained by their emotional shallowness and lack of interest in other people (Forsyth & O´Boyle, 2012).
These results support Bavoľár's (2018) reasoning that non-adaptive decision-making styles are associated with the more negative poles of classical Big Five personality traits, which correspond to just such properties that saturate the construct of the Dark Triad.
By comprehensive testing of relationships using structural equations modeling, we found that the Dark Triad explains 20% of the variance of decision-making styles. Through more detailed testing, we found that psychopathy has the largest share in this among the features of the Dark Triad. It had a negative indirect effect on rational decision-making style, on all others it had a positive indirect effect. This suggests that irrational, intuitive, dependent, avoidant, and spontaneous decision-making styles should have some element in common and share it with psychopathy at the same time. Based on theoretical background, we can assume that this connecting element may be the speed and impulsivity in decision making, which is associated with lower certainty in the correctness of the final decision (Harren, 1979;Paulhus & Williams, 2002;Scott & Bruce, 1995).

Limitations of the study
As limitation is considered the limited number of respondents, what was mainly due to the situation that arose as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. That is why the results should be justified by an insufficiently large research set, although opinions on this parameter differ in literature. The most common operation is with at least 200 cases (Kline, 2011), a sample of 100-150 cases is required to be sufficiently large (Tabachnik & Fidell, 2001), but it is no exception to encounter relatively small samples that are considered sufficient to be used with the method (e.g. 5-10 cases/parameter; Kline, 2011). For this reason, it is recommended to avoid generalization and to interpret the results with some restrain. On the other hand, it is a suggestion for further research in this area. The face validity of the Short Dark Triad scale Psychological Thought 2021, Vol. 14(1), 74-93 South-West University "Neofit Rilski" https://doi.org/10.37708/psyct.v14i1.556 could also have a limiting effect, as it is clear from the wording of the items what were respondents asked about. In this context, the participants may have produced socially desirable responses that would not put them in a bad light.

Conclusion
The benefit of the conducted study is perceived in the enrichment of the previous findings concerning the relations of decision-making styles with personality characteristics. So far, several studies have been conducted that focused on both adaptive and non-adaptive personality traits (Big Five, HEXACO, emotional intelligence, impulsivity, procrastination, hypervigilance) and their relationship to decision-making styles, but a study that would link

Funding/Financial Support
The research was supported by the grant agency VEGA under the contract No. 1/0748/19

Other Support/Acknowledgement
The authors have no support to report.