Quelle surprise: Psych students score substantially lower on “dark” traits than business and law students

Recently an analysis was published about a project involving hundreds of Danish students enrolled to begin studying either psychology, politics/law, or business/economics who first took a combination of the Big Five and Dark Triad personality tests. The study discovered Business/economics students scored the highest of all on the Dark Triad, followed by Law/Politics and then psychology. On the other hand psychology students scored “much higher” than the other student groups on the Big Five Traits of Agreeableness, Openness and Neuroticism. The rationale was that by testing students’ personalities after they’d chosen their subject, but before they’d begun their studies, or careers, the researchers would uncover evidence for whether people with certain kinds of personalities are drawn to particular professions, as opposed to, or as well as, those professions shaping their personalities.

To the 7MTF/Humm practitioner these results come as no surprise. One of the key messages in my workshops is the to use the TOPDOG mnemonic (Talk-Organisation-Position-Dress-Office-Gambit) recognise the dominant core emotions. You would expect psychologists to be high in Doublechecker (Agreeableness) and Artist (Openness) components. In the same way you would expect Lawyers to be high in Regulator/Normal (low Neuroticism) and Businesspeople to be high in GoGetter/Hustler.

What I did find interesting is this is the first time I have a seen a study that incorporates both the Five Factor Model and the Dark Triad together. The 7MTF/Humm model contains seven components. The five most common 7MTF/Humm components match up with the Big Five. The GoGetter/Hustler component incorporates the three traits of the Dark Triad (psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism). What is missing in this study is the seventh 7MTF/Humm component, namely the Politician. This is because it is the Politician component that typically determines how high up the organisational ladder a person will climb. The Politician is driven by the desire to win, and climbing the organisational ladder is a focus that the Politician relishes.

The 7MTF model not only provides you clues as to which industry career a person would prefer; it also provides a clue as to how successful a person will be.