Neuroscience
There are countless examples in nature of biological adaptations going hand in hand with either a nocturnal or diurnal (day-time) lifestyle. For instance, cats have reflective lenses allowing better vision in low light; chimps have colour vision which is useful for spotting fruit in daylight.
In a new paper Peter Jonason and his colleagues provide evidence that in humans certain personality types act as a form of adaptation that correlates with a preference for daily or nightly living (a person's "chronotype"). Specifically the researchers have shown that people with a preference for the evening and night-time tend to score highly on the "Dark Triad" of personality traits - Machiavellianism, psychopathy and narcissism.
Jonason and his colleagues surveyed 263 students online (average age 24; there were 74 men) using a narcissism scale (participants rated their agreement with statements like: "I have a natural talent for influencing people"); a psychopathy scale (e.g. "I think I could beat a lie detector"), a Machiavellianism scale (e.g. "it is hard to get ahead without cutting corners here and there") and chronotype questionnaire (participants answered questions like "During the first half hour after you wake up in the morning, how do you feel?").
Across the sample, average Dark Triad trait scores correlated negatively with chronotype scores (r was -.14, p<.001 where -1 would be a perfect correlation). That is, the darker a person's personality score, the more they tended to be an "owl" and to say they functioned more effectively in the evening. Drilling down into the individual subscales: psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and the entitlement/exploitativeness aspects of narcissism all correlated on their own with eveningness on the chronotype questionnaire.
Jonason and his team said their results were consistent with a "niche-specialisation" hypothesis. "It could be adaptively effective for anyone pursuing a fast life strategy like that embodied in the Dark Triad to occupy and exploit a low-light environment where others are sleeping and having diminished cognitive functioning," they said. "Such features of the night may facilitate the causal sex, mate-poaching, and risk-taking the Dark Triad traits are linked to."
The findings give pause for thought but the dependence on a student sample once again raises questions about the generalisability of the results. The modest size of the relevant correlations also undermines the researchers' theoretical speculations. Another problem is the reliance on self-report. This is common in chronotype research, but nonetheless it raises the issue of whether the self-described owls really do function better in the evening or if they simply prefer that time of day.
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Peter K. Jonason, and Amy Jones Minna Lyons (2013). Creatures of the night: Chronotypes and the Dark Triad traits. Personality and Individual Differences DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2013.05.001
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
Creatures of the night - people who favour the evening score higher on Dark Triad personality traits
In a new paper Peter Jonason and his colleagues provide evidence that in humans certain personality types act as a form of adaptation that correlates with a preference for daily or nightly living (a person's "chronotype"). Specifically the researchers have shown that people with a preference for the evening and night-time tend to score highly on the "Dark Triad" of personality traits - Machiavellianism, psychopathy and narcissism.
Jonason and his colleagues surveyed 263 students online (average age 24; there were 74 men) using a narcissism scale (participants rated their agreement with statements like: "I have a natural talent for influencing people"); a psychopathy scale (e.g. "I think I could beat a lie detector"), a Machiavellianism scale (e.g. "it is hard to get ahead without cutting corners here and there") and chronotype questionnaire (participants answered questions like "During the first half hour after you wake up in the morning, how do you feel?").
Across the sample, average Dark Triad trait scores correlated negatively with chronotype scores (r was -.14, p<.001 where -1 would be a perfect correlation). That is, the darker a person's personality score, the more they tended to be an "owl" and to say they functioned more effectively in the evening. Drilling down into the individual subscales: psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and the entitlement/exploitativeness aspects of narcissism all correlated on their own with eveningness on the chronotype questionnaire.
Jonason and his team said their results were consistent with a "niche-specialisation" hypothesis. "It could be adaptively effective for anyone pursuing a fast life strategy like that embodied in the Dark Triad to occupy and exploit a low-light environment where others are sleeping and having diminished cognitive functioning," they said. "Such features of the night may facilitate the causal sex, mate-poaching, and risk-taking the Dark Triad traits are linked to."
The findings give pause for thought but the dependence on a student sample once again raises questions about the generalisability of the results. The modest size of the relevant correlations also undermines the researchers' theoretical speculations. Another problem is the reliance on self-report. This is common in chronotype research, but nonetheless it raises the issue of whether the self-described owls really do function better in the evening or if they simply prefer that time of day.
_________________________________
Peter K. Jonason, and Amy Jones Minna Lyons (2013). Creatures of the night: Chronotypes and the Dark Triad traits. Personality and Individual Differences DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2013.05.001
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- How Do People With Dark Triad Personality Traits Fare At Speed Dating?
People who score highly in the Dark Triad personality traits – narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism – are vain, selfish, callous and manipulative. They're not the kind of people you want to spend much time with. This raises the obvious...
- Link Feast
Our editor's pick of this week's 10 best psychology and neuroscience links: Why Behavioral Economics is Cool, and I’m Not At Medium, Organisational psychologist Adam Grant – yes he's a psychologist not an economist – wonders...
- What Your Favourite Harry Potter House Says About Your Personality
Harry Potter fans strongly self-identify with the different Houses within Hogwarts, the story’s magical school. Now new research shows that a fan’s preferred House tells us something about their personality. Laura Crysel and colleagues used an online...
- Morning People ("larks") Are More Punctual Than "owls"
You've probably heard that sleep psychologists like to divide people up into those who function optimally in the morning, and those who come alive at night (but see also). The former, "larks", tend to get up and go to bed earlier than "owls". A new...
- The Personality Of Early Risers
Morning people, early risers. You know the type; you might even be one. They've already done the housework and gone for a jog while the rest of us are still blissfully cocooned in our beds. According to Juan Francisco Diaz-Morales, such people tend...