Journal of Psychological Science and Research

The study titled, “Dark Triad of Personality, Difficulties in Emotional Regulation and Career Exploration Behavior in students is very relevant to the academic industry. The study shows that there is a significant positive relationship between dark triad of personality, difficulties in emotion regulation and career exploration behavior in students. The aim of the study was to see that what can be done to improve career exploration behavior in students. The findings indicate that there is significant relationship between the three constructs. This study has wide implications for academic professionals and related in the discipline’s social science and humanities. Hence, less psychopathic tendencies are found in students of Pakistan and prove to be valuable in global academic settings.¹

Keywords: Personality, Career, Exploration behavior, Emotion regulation

Students in developing countries, especially in Pakistan face academic and professional challenges.1-3 The international world must be more accessible in terms of educational, vocational and career opportunities as there is potential in the students. In this study, personality, emotional regulation and career exploration behavior is explored. Societal impact will include attention to the international institutions to study findings and aim to facilitate students from developing nations, and from Pakistan towards achievement and affiliation.

Machiavellianism
The word Machiavellianism is nearly entirely drawn from Machiavelli's instruction in The Prince. When the interests of the state are at stake, Machiavellianism is related with the doctrines of moral expediency and deception in political activities, the separation of politics from private morality. The person with high Machiavellianism correlated to the career path.4 There are some studies which revealed that the Machiavellianism is correlated to the emotional regulation and also cause of the emotional instability in the social situations.5

Psychopathy
Raskin and Hall's (1979) attempt to create a subclinical form of the DSM-defined personality disorder resulted in the concept of subclinical or "normal" narcissism. Grandiosity, entitlement, domination, and superiority were all aspects of the clinical condition that were retained.1

Psychopaths, according to previous research, have no conscience and are unconcerned about the implications of their actions on the environment, implying a fundamental lack of social responsibility. There are many researchers conducted that showed the correlation between the psychopathy and what vocational preferences by the students.6 The researchers showed the high relationship between the psychopathy and emotional regulation such as psychopathy related to the impulsive aggression.7

Narcissism
Linda Mealey8 posits that dark personalities have been in existence since human kind delved into predatory groups. Hence, the life history came into being. It is agreed upon that dark triad traits own fast life history strategy. These include deficits such as self-control and selflessness. According to this theory, Machiavellianism and narcissism are the “lighter traits”.

Self-esteem theory
Rosenberg9 suggests that people who have low self-esteem are more likely to be prone towards the darker side of personalities and he takes the view of “Human Magnet Syndrome “theory that people are attracted to those with positive qualities that they lack themselves. Rosenberg gives an example that patient and giving people are often attracted towards people with narcissistic and psychopathic traits.

Skobkareva (2020) studied that relationship between self-esteem and dark triad personality that indicated that e explicit self-esteem was negatively correlated with narcissism, but none of the dark triad qualities were linked to implicit self-esteem. Individuals with varying levels of high self-esteem did not have higher trait aggressiveness scores than those with various levels of self-esteem.

Attachment theory                      
Bowlby posits that early life attachments can influence personality toward the darker side. Any incidence of childhood violence and victimization can lead to negative behaviors in adulthood. In support to this, social learning theory can help resolve strenuous conflicts within personality.10

Dangerous decision theory
Porter and Ten Brinke posits that there are facial expressions that can be attributed to flawed evaluations. This can lead to biases in interpretation of a person hence facial judgements can be misleading and can influence behavior towards dark triad traits.11

Narrative theory of personality
Tomkins suggests that as writers or playwrights, individuals also have the tendency to shape their emotional life according to recurrent patterns of their life. This is how people tend to form their identity through internalization that gives the person sense of purpose in life.12

Emotional regulation
The conceptual associations between found in the Individual differences in emotional self-management, as well as a wide range of desirable personality traits (e.g., ego control, agreeableness, emotional stability, and so on), suggest that expanding one's repertoire of emotional self-regulation strategies is important for healthy personality development. When the idea of "emotional regulation" is broken down.

Need oriented emotional regulation theory
Freud first related to the need oriented emotional regulation through the need of basic hedonic needs of human beings. It was known that pleasure principle is the first child-like dimension of human personality which continues to be realized by modern theories of emotional regulation.13

Cognitive affective personality system
Mischel and Shoda posits the idea of emotional “schema” and is referred to as the mediating part of personality. The emotional schema is known as the stable characteristic of a personality. Emotion aids in motivation and perceptual cognitive processes and is essential in early developmental phases of life.14

The CAPS theory14 was proposed in order to explain how and why people’s behavior differ stably in different situations. The cognitive-affective processing system is a theory of personality which focus on the importance of variable situational and the qualities of the individual’s cognition with the development of personality. There are five cognitive-affective units which affect our information processing. These cognitive qualities of individual effects one’s behavior and his interaction with the environment. The five units include encoding (Information processing, storing and using), expectations/belief (expectation of the outcomes of individual from their actions), goals/values (life goals, rewards from their behavior), affect (emotional reaction to the situation), and self-regulation/ competencies (general intelligence, knowledge).

Occupational preferences in terms of career exploration
Occupational preferences mean the kind of work people want to work. For example some might like to work in and cooperate sector some like to work in open setting etc. In this research we are targeting to understand what kind of profession students want to pursue in their future.

In research on the occupational interests and their Associated with the Dark Triad personality model (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism). The researchers looked at how people's views of the Dark Triad characteristics differed depending on their profession. The participants in two surveys (N=933) feel that it is appropriate for musicians and attorneys to score high in the Dark Triad characteristics traits. Participants, also showed that the Narcissism should be strong among instructors, while Machiavellianism and psychopathy should be minimal. Teachers are seen to benefit from characteristics of narcissism, whereas Machiavellianism and psychopathy are seen as liabilities. People who are high in a single Dark Triad feature believe that others should be high in that trait as well, regardless of their profession choices. in that same trait. All results are to be considered in the context of the attraction-selection-attrition model.

Krick (2016) examined the relationship between the dark triad personality, moral judgment and disciplinary choices in the students. The findings of that study was suggested that students of business and management show little moral judgment and higher level of dark triad personality.

The study was conducted to find the correlation between the dark triad and vocational interests which showed that high on the dark triad may lead to structure their social environment through idealized career preference and also showed that career preferences may due to individual differences in dark triad even in the sex difference.15

Jauk16examined the relationship of emotional intelligence to the dark triad personality traits in different sex. The findings suggested that emotional intelligence in women with dark triad psychopathy goes reduced while in men with narcissistic personality has lower emotional intelligence.

Schneider17 examined whether the dark triad is incremental predictor of career interest. The study showed that dark triad is unique variance and incremental prediction for the career interest.

Dsouza18 examined the influence of dark triad on interest of professional career which founded that the personality dark triad traits stimulate the professional career interest of students.

The research Kijak19 examined relationship between dark triad personality, career preferences, job satisfaction and career suitability. The results indicate that trait narcissisms is found mostly in leadership whereas Machiavellianism is found in competitive group. Authority and power group people have high traits of psychopathy.

These theories related to career exploration will be used in the literature review:

Life space theory
Super20 postulates that career exploration and development changes in different stages and ages across the individual. This process is unique to everyone and is impacted by ability, ethnicity, personality, age, socioeconomic status, family, opportunity and geography. The career exploration ultimately reaches to career maturity and it is one of the evolving processes of life that includes growth, establishment, maintenance and finally disengagement.

Vocational personalities and work environment theory
Holland (1966) posits that there are six types that suit personality styles with career choice, personality and work environments. These include being realistic, investigative, artistic, social, enterprising and conventional (RIASEC).

John Holland developed a hexagonal model which shows the relationship between the environments and personality types. Holland notice that personality types which are close with on another are more alike than the one farther away.

Holland describe 6 types of people. Each type contain dissimilarity with other types.

These types are Investigative (analytical, intellectual, complex, critical, and cautious) good for the career like science, qualitative pursuits and research. Artistic (expressive, imaginative, intuitive, emotional, and nonconforming) career suits to this types are writing, theatre and art. The social type (friendly, warm, understanding, and cooperative) good for teaching, social services and counselling. The enterprise type (ambitious, energetic, sociable, and excitement seeking) politics, leadership, and entrepreneurial activities. The Conventional type (conscientious, methodical, orderly, and thrifty) accounting, banking, clerical are ideal career.

Career construction theory and life design
Savickas21 postulates that an individual’s story is very important when it comes to career exploration behaviour. The “self-construction” aspect helps people to build experiences from childhood.

Chaos career theory
Pryor and Bright22 postulate a modern theory in which theory addresses the current realities revolving around career choices. It depends on “attraction” that how individuals express likeness for a career. It includes the dimensions of point attractor, pendulum attractor, torus attractor and strange attractor.

Hansen23 takes into account how individuals hope to find meaning in work so that when they form a career they can better fit in community. It includes searching for work that matches with global context, finding meaningful work, connecting people through work, value pluralism, managing personal transitions and exploring spirituality and work purpose. These six crucial life tasks are important for personal value system as well.

In this research correlational research design was used. The design was used for the purpose of access the association between Dark Triad Personality, Emotional Regulation and career exploration in students. The sample consist of 225 students including 154 males and 71 females taken from colleges and academies in Lahore studying at intermediate level. Ages of the participants ranges from 16-20 years. Purposive sampling was used for selecting sample.

Purposive sampling was used for this study. The study was carried out 2 months to evaluate scores of participants on their respective construct. Students studying at intermediate level ranging from year 16 to 20 years were selected. We did not include students above the age of 20.

Scale Details
Dark Triad Personality D-3 Short scale by Paulhus DL, 2013
This scale consists of 27 items; Machiavellianism Cronbach alpha .78,
Narcissism Cronbach alpha .77‚ Psychopathy Cronbach alpha .80.

Difficulty in Emotional Regulation Scale DERS by Kim Gratz, 2004
This scale has 36 items; DERS Cronbach alpha =.93
 
Career Exploration Scale CES by Stumpf, 1983
This scale has 62 items; Cronbach alpha=0.48

Using IBM SPSS Statistics v.23, responses will be coded, totaled and be tested for significance. Using SPSS, descriptive statistics and frequencies will be coded. 5 demographic questions will be part of questionnaire; gender, type of family system, education level, monthly household income, and age.

1. Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation will be used to measure relationship among the variables.
2. Simple Linear Regression will be used to assess the relationship between dark triad of personality and difficulties in emotional regulation in students.
3. Multiple linear regression will be used to assess the significant relationship of dark triad of personality and difficulties in emotional regulation in career exploration behavior in students.

In the research the sample size was 225 including 149 66.2% participant belonging to nuclear family and 78 participant 33.8 % from joint family. The study include 68.4% of Male and 31.6% of Females. The age group was from 16-20 years. All of them having some college education Table 1.

Table 2 shows mean, standard deviation and Cronbach Alpha with skewness and kurtosis values. Descriptive values and reliabilities of dark triad of personality (Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopath). Emotional regulation and career exploration have been calculated. Dark triad of personality’s total has the highest reliability α=.77 which is moderate to high. Emotional regulation has a moderate reliability α=.68.

Narcissism is followed with moderate reliability of α=.64 followed by Machiavellianism reliability =.63. The lowest/ weakest reliability report is of psychopathy α=.58.{\displaystyle \alpha }

Correlation Analysis
Table 3 shows the results of Pearson Correlation that indicates that dark triad of personality has significantly positive relation (r=.39, p<0.01). Similarly, dark triad of personality has a significantly positive relation with career exploration (r=.39, p<0.01).

It is reported that subscale of dark triad of personality, Machiavellianism has a positively significant relation with emotional regulation (r=.22, p<0.01); narcissism has a positively significant relation with emotional regulation (r=.36, p<0.01); psychopathy has a positively significant relation with emotional regulation (r=.24, p<0.01).

Multiple Linear Regression Analysis

Table 4 shows that multiple linear regression analysis was carried out to determine the significant predictors of career exploration behaviour in students. Results indicated that Machiavellianism (B=.13, p<0.01); narcissism (B=.24, p<0.01) and emotional regulation (B=.33, p<0.01) are significant predictors of career exploration behaviour in students. The B value shows that there is 13% of relative influence of Machiavellianism on career exploration, 24% of relative influence of narcissism on career exploration and 33% of relative influence of emotional regulation of career exploration behaviour in students. The R- squared indicates that 32% of variance in career exploration behaviour in students can be accounted for dark triad of personality (Machiavellianism and narcissism).

Simple Linear Regression

Table 5 shows that simple linear regression was carried out to determine the significant predictor of dark triad of personality. The findings indicated that dark triad of personality is the strongest predictor of emotional regulation. The B value shows that there is 39% percent of relative influence of emotional regulation on dark triad of personality. R-squared indicates that there is 15% of variance in dark triad of personality that can be accounted for in in emotional regulation.

The study was conducted to evaluate the relationship among Dark triad personality (Narcissism, Machiavellianism & Psychopathy) Emotional regulation and Career Exploration choices in students. And to check e if the Dark triad model of personality is the significant predictor of difficulties in emotional regulation in students. And how the both construct dark triad model of personality and emotional regulation effects the career exploration choices in students.

This study shows that there is a significant positive relation between dark triad model of personality and career exploration. The previous research support our hypothesis that there is a diverse professional preferences of students with dark triad personality.24 Our study showed that the sub scale of dark triad model of personality (Narcissism, Machiavellianism & Psychopathy) has a positively significant relation. Our study showed that that Machiavellianism narcissism and emotional regulation are significant predictors of career exploration behavior in students with emotional regulation.

It is further investigated, that dark triad model of personality is the significant predictor of difficulties in emotional regulation in students. Although the all three subscale of the dark triad personality with the emotional regulation are limited to available but there is a study that supported our hypothesis in a way that the relationship between the narcissism and the emotional regulation.

According to the Vocational Personalities and Environment Theory, it is inferred that some specific personality characteristics would prove to better indicators of career exploration behavior. As per theory, realistic personality is more prone to proactivity that can thus reflect energetic career exploration behavior.

Moreover, the integrated life planning theory postulates that people find meaning in their work. A personality that fits the mold of slight dark personality traits, yet some meaningful work is being put forth such as common in drug businesses to promote health or risky adventures for undertaken by narcissism prone individuals to save lives or contribute to positive impact in war stricken areas; can be an interesting finding to further speculate into. It may not apply to students’ sample.

As per the Hierarchy of Needs Theory, it postulates that individuals need fulfillment. The dark triad traits may not always be taken negatively. Individuals may know how to balance the aspects of their dark triad to regulate their emotions. This may apply to the lower level of needs like seeking security and finding a balance in surviving through life stages where rough side of personality eventually reveals. That is why, it is seen that often unemployed, less educated and deprived individuals score higher in dark triad of personality scale.

As per the Life Space Theory, roles evolve around in which an individual is expected to behave in a certain way. It may happen that due to mid-life crisis, an individual may show greater aspects of dark triad of personality at work due to changes in occupation, health, family circumstances or general environment.

Also, as per the CAPS Theory, different personalities will process emotions differently. It is agreed that dark triad and emotional regulation shares a positive relation, it is when a specific individual decides to regulate the emotion despite having dark triad of personality, especially when faced with productive activity, like that of seeking a job or to investigate career choices.

Further, in a study the findings revealed that narcissistic impulsivity is characterized by risky social involvement, whereas psychopathic impulsivity is characterized by inadequate self-control. And, predictably, the study discovered no consistent link between Machiavellianism and either form of impulsivity. In summary, the members of the Dark Triad have a consistent pattern of impulsive relationship.

Moreover, there is a study supported that the individuals entitled ideas are linked to hostile personality traits, which has ramification for the workplace and may be of interest. Employers can utilize it to make suitable hiring and management decisions to avoid workplace issues. Another study supported in a way that the malevolent personality linked to the best job performance.25-35

The study helped us in gaining new insight into the relationship between dark triad model of personality and emotional regulation in student and how these effect the career exploration tendencies in students. This study shows, that despite have dark triad of personality or some tendency towards the three subscales of dark triad of personality, there is still management of emotional regulation and career exploration behavior in students. Moreover, the students of Pakistan show balanced personalities and are potential good fit to join academics worldwide.35-44

None.

None.

Authors declares that there is no conflict of interest.

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