A Meta-Analysis of the Dark Triad and Work Behavior: A Social Exchange Perspective

We reviewed studies of the Dark Triad (DT) personality traits-Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy-and meta-analytically examined their implications for job performance and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Relations among the DT traits and behaviors were extracted from original report...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of applied psychology 2012-05, Vol.97 (3), p.557-579
Main Authors: O'Boyle, Ernest H., Forsyth, Donelson R., Banks, George C., McDaniel, Michael A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Antisocial personality disorder
Antisocial Personality Disorder - psychology
Biological and medical sciences
Counterproductive Work Behavior
Dark Triad
Empirical research
Employee Characteristics
Employee Discipline
Employment - psychology
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Human performance
Humans
Interpersonal Relations
Job Performance
Machiavellianism
Meta-analysis
Multivariate analysis
Narcissism
Occupational psychology
Organizational behavior
Personality Traits
Productivity
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychopathology
Psychopathy
Social Exchange
Studies
Systematic review
Warrants
Work behaviour
Work condition. Job performance. Stress
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Summary:We reviewed studies of the Dark Triad (DT) personality traits-Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy-and meta-analytically examined their implications for job performance and counterproductive work behavior (CWB). Relations among the DT traits and behaviors were extracted from original reports published between 1951 and 2011 of 245 independent samples (N = 43,907). We found that reductions in the quality of job performance were consistently associated with increases in Machiavellianism and psychopathy and that CWB was associated with increases in all 3 components of the DT, but that these associations were moderated by such contextual factors as authority and culture. Multivariate analyses demonstrated that the DT explains moderate amounts of the variance in counterproductivity, but not job performance. The results showed that the 3 traits are positively related to one another but are sufficiently distinctive to warrant theoretical and empirical partitioning.
ISSN:0021-9010
1939-1854
DOI:10.1037/a0025679