Personality Beyond Good and Evil: New Research Reveals Three Distinct Personality Profiles

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Most of us like to think we're fundamentally good people — but a new study published in Personality and Individual Differences (2026) suggests that human moral personality is more nuanced than a simple good-versus-bad divide. Researchers from Deakin University, Columbia University, and the University of North Texas identified three distinct personality profiles that reveal how "light" and "dark" traits co-exist within individuals, and how those configurations shape our social lives in surprisingly complex ways.

The Light and Dark Within Us​

The study, led by David Skvarc and colleagues, draws on two well-established personality frameworks:

• The Dark Triad — Machiavellianism (manipulativeness), Narcissism (grandiosity and entitlement), and Psychopathy (callousness and impulsivity)
• The Light Triad — Kantianism (treating people as ends, not means), Humanism (valuing people intrinsically), and Faith in Humanity (seeing the best in others)

Rather than studying these traits as isolated variables, the researchers took a person-centred approach, asking: how do these traits cluster together within real individuals? Using latent profile analysis on a large Australian sample of 2,332 adults, they aimed to uncover whether people naturally fall into distinct dispositional "types."

Three Types of People​

The analysis confirmed a clean three-class solution:

• The Benevolent (20.7%): High Light Triad scores, low Dark Triad scores. Compassionate, trusting, prosocial.
• The Balanced (70.6%): Moderate levels on both light and dark traits. The vast majority of people fall here.
• The Malevolent (8.7%): Low Light Triad scores, high Dark Triad scores. Antagonistic, self-interested, low empathy.

This three-profile structure replicated findings from prior research by Neumann et al. (2020), lending the result strong validity across different populations and sampling methods.

Who Falls Into Each Group?​

The demographic breakdown offers some striking patterns. The Benevolent class was strongly skewed female (81%) and tended to be younger (average age ~34). The Malevolent and Balanced classes mirrored the overall sample in their gender ratio (~33% male), suggesting that the male-skewed "dark" profile observed in some earlier online studies may reflect recruitment bias rather than a universal feature of malevolent personality.

How These Profiles Behave — and Are Treated — in Social Life​

Beyond personality scores, the study examined how each class fared in everyday social interactions, and the results were largely as expected — with one notable exception.

Prosocial behaviour and aggression followed the predicted pattern cleanly:

• Benevolent individuals reported the highest prosocial behaviour and the lowest relational aggression perpetration
• Malevolent individuals showed the opposite — less helping, more aggression
• Balanced individuals fell predictably in between

Sadism and vulnerable narcissism also increased clearly across classes from Benevolent to Malevolent. Interestingly, grandiose narcissism showed no significant difference between classes — all three groups scored similarly. The researchers suggest that grandiose narcissism may serve a self-presentational function shared across personality types, perhaps conferring social advantages like confidence and assertiveness regardless of one's moral orientation.

The "Cooperative Victim" Paradox​

Perhaps the most counterintuitive finding concerned relational aggression victimisation — being on the receiving end of behaviours like rumour-spreading or social exclusion. Logic might suggest that kind, prosocial people would be victimised least. In fact, the Benevolent class showed intermediate victimisation levels — higher than the Balanced class, though lower than the Malevolent class.

The researchers propose a "cooperative victim" pattern: highly trusting, forgiving, and prosocially oriented individuals may inadvertently make themselves vulnerable to exploitation by others. Meanwhile, the Malevolent class's elevated victimisation is thought to reflect a "provocation-victimisation cycle" — their own antagonistic behaviour invites retaliation, while their heightened vulnerable narcissism makes them acutely sensitive to perceived slights.

The Balanced class, by contrast, reported the lowest victimisation — possibly due to better social skills, conflict management strategies, or protective social networks.

What Makes Someone "Malevolent"?​

A key theoretical insight from the paper concerns the structure of the malevolent profile. The authors argue that malevolence is best understood not as the presence of uniquely pathological traits, but as a collapse of the prosocial baseline. In other words, what most defines the Malevolent class is not simply high psychopathy or Machiavellianism — it is the profound absence of faith in humanity, humanism, and care for others. This interpretation aligns with evolutionary models of prosociality as a default human tendency, with dark traits representing deficits from that baseline rather than alien additions.

Limitations and What Comes Next​

The authors acknowledge several limitations:​

• The study was cross-sectional, preventing causal conclusions
• Self-report measures are vulnerable to social desirability bias, particularly for grandiose narcissism
• The sample, recruited through an Australian university and social media, may not fully generalise to other populations

Future research should integrate behavioural and multi-informant methods — going beyond self-reports to observe how these profiles actually manifest in real-world social interactions. Combining person-centred profiling with context-specific motivational analysis could help identify individuals most at risk of perpetrating — or suffering from — socially disruptive behaviour.

The Takeaway​

This study reinforces that personality is not a single dial from "good" to "evil." Most people occupy a complex middle ground, while a meaningful minority lean strongly toward either compassion or antagonism. Crucially, being deeply benevolent does not insulate someone from social harm — in fact, it may create its own vulnerabilities. Understanding profiles of personality, rather than individual traits in isolation, offers a richer and more actionable picture of how character shapes the texture of our social lives.

Sources​

Skvarc, D., Patafio, B., Mayshak, R., Hyder, S., Kaufman, S. B., & Neumann, C. (2026). Beyond good and evil: A person-centred analysis of benevolent vs. malevolent interpersonal dispositional styles. Personality and Individual Differences, 259, 113854. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2026.113854

 

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You can test your Light Triad and Dark Triad traits to see where you fit in all this. These are the same test as used for this study, namely :

• The Light Triad Scale (LTS) was published by Kaufman et al. (2019)
• The Short Dark Triad (SD3) by Jones & Paulhus (2014)

 

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Several studies have extended this line of research well beyond Australia.

The Original Multi-Sample Study (USA)​

The foundational person-centred study this paper replicates was conducted by Neumann et al. (2020) using large American samples, including visitors to a popular psychology website (N = 35,270) and an MTurk/Prolific Academic sample, as well as a supplementary sample of U.S. Senators. That study first identified the same three-class Benevolent/Balanced/Malevolent solution, with the Benevolent profile associated with higher life satisfaction and positive self-image.

Study 1 — Archival Website Sample (N = 35,270)​

Profile	% of sample
Light (LT > DT)	50%
Middle	43%
Dark (DT > LT)	7%

The demographic picture was striking: 76% of the Dark subtype were male versus only 24% female, while the Light subtype was majority female (59%). The Dark subtype was also the youngest on average (M = 29.4 years), while Light trait individuals were the oldest (M = 40 years). The subtypes also differed in education: Light individuals had the highest proportion of advanced degrees (45%), while Dark individuals had the lowest (32%). Light trait individuals reported substantially higher life satisfaction and job satisfaction than both other groups.

Study 2 — MTurk/Prolific Academic Sample (N = 1,518)​

The second study replicated the three-class solution with a more diverse, rigorously recruited sample:

Profile	% of sample]
Middle	41%
Light	33%
Dark	26%

The notably higher Dark class percentage here (26% versus 7% in Study 1) illustrates how recruitment method dramatically affects class proportions — a key methodological point that Skvarc et al. (2026) also highlight. The gender skew in the Dark class was again evident (66% male).

Beyond demographics, this study validated the profiles against a rich battery of psychological measures:

• Empathy: Light trait individuals scored highest on both cognitive and affective empathy; Dark individuals scored lowest
• Aggression: Dark individuals showed significantly higher proactive and reactive aggression
• Moral reasoning: Dark individuals were more willing to endorse utilitarian moral decisions that harmed others for the greater good
• Attachment: Light individuals showed more secure attachment styles (closer, more dependable relationships); Dark individuals were more avoidant
• Self-image: Light individuals held more positive views of themselves, the world, and the future
• Charitable giving: In a dictator game, Light individuals donated significantly more money to charity than Dark individuals
• Spiritual experiences: Interestingly, the subtypes did not significantly differ in religious or spiritual experiences — suggesting that spiritual orientation cuts across the light-dark divide

Study 3 — U.S. Senators (N = 143)​

This is the most striking and widely discussed part of the study. Crucially, the senator data were based on third-party observational ratings rather than self-reports — which bypasses social desirability bias. The ratings drew on established prior research by ten Brinke et al. (2016), who had already coded senators' light and dark traits from observable behaviour.

The results completely reversed the general population pattern:

• In the general population, the Dark class was least prevalent (~7–26%)
• Among senators, the Dark class was most prevalent
• Light trait senators were the least common

Furthermore, the study found a striking paradox in legislative performance:

• Dark-profile senators had longer tenure in office — consistent with dark traits facilitating the acquisition and retention of power through dominance and self-promotion
• Dark-profile senators co-sponsored significantly fewer bills — meaning they were less effective as legislators despite holding power longer
• Light-profile senators showed the opposite: shorter average tenures but greater legislative productivity through cooperation

 

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Cross-Cultural Comparison Across 5 Countries​

A 2023 study (Dark and Light Triad: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of Network Analysis in 5 Countries) analyzed both the Light Triad Scale and Short Dark Triad in 2,335 adults from Poland, Brazil, Nigeria, Colombia, and Peru using network analysis.

Key Finding 1: The Structural Universality of Light and Dark Traits​

Across all five countries, the Light and Dark Triads remained structurally distinct constructs — they did not collapse into a single good-versus-evil dimension, confirming that benevolence and malevolence are genuinely independent personality axes rather than opposite poles of the same continuum. This replicates findings from Kaufman et al. (2019) in a much more culturally diverse sample.

Key Finding 2: Machiavellianism as the "Dark Core" in Latin America and Poland​

In Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Poland, Machiavellianism consistently emerged as the most central and influential dark trait — meaning it had the strongest connections to all other dark traits and drove the overall dark personality network. The researchers suggested this reflects cultural contexts where strategic social navigation is particularly adaptive: societies with higher power distance, economic inequality, or histories of institutional distrust may reward Machiavellian thinking more than in egalitarian societies.

Key Finding 3: Nigeria Stands Out for Humanism​

Nigeria showed a distinctly different pattern on the light side: Humanism (intrinsically valuing other people) was the most central light trait, whereas Faith in Humanity and Kantianism played this role in other countries. The researchers linked this to Nigeria's strong communal and religious cultural values, where an emphasis on the intrinsic worth of others is deeply embedded in social norms.

Key Finding 4: Cross-Cultural Stability of Gender Differences​

Consistent with findings from other studies, dark traits were higher in men across all five countries, while light traits were higher in women. This gender asymmetry, replicated in a culturally diverse sample spanning three continents, suggests these differences are not merely an artefact of Western or WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich, Democratic) samples.

75-Country Study: Democracy and Personality​

Perhaps the most ambitious follow-up was published in Scientific Reports in 2025 by Neumann, Kaufman, and ten Brinke, using a sample of 247,981 people from 75 countries. Their findings showed that:

• Citizens of full democracies scored significantly higher on benevolent traits and lower on malevolent traits compared to those living under autocratic or hybrid regimes
• Benevolent traits (but not malevolent ones) were strongly associated with subjective well-being across all countries
• The pattern held even after controlling for measurement invariance across cultures

Government type	Malevolent traits	Benevolent traits
Autocratic	Highest	Lowest
Hybrid regime	↓	↑
Flawed democracy	↓↓	↑↑
Full democracy	Lowest	Highest

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Dark Triad Across 18 Cultures (Rogoza et al., 2022)​

Published in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, this study by Rogoza and colleagues examined 10,298 adults from 18 cultures across Europe, America, Africa, and Asia, with a mean age of 40.3 years and a roughly even gender split.

How Much Does Culture Actually Matter?​

The headline finding was that culture explains between 6% and 16% of the variance in Dark Triad scores. This is a nuanced result: it confirms that culture genuinely shapes dark trait levels, but also that the majority of variation (84–94%) is explained by individual-level factors — meaning two people from the same country can differ far more than the average difference between countries.

Gender Differences Across Cultures​

Men scored higher than women on all three Dark Triad traits in most of the 18 cultures studied. Crucially, gender differences were largest in European countries — a counterintuitive finding, since European countries tend to be more gender-equal. This "gender equality paradox" has been observed elsewhere in personality research and is thought to reflect greater freedom for both men and women to express their natural dispositions when social constraints are loosened.

Age Effects​

All three dark traits showed a negative relationship with age — younger people consistently scored higher. However, the effect sizes were small, with psychopathy showing the largest age decline (η2=.018η2=.018). This is consistent with the idea that dark traits partly reflect immature or impulsive personality structures that moderate over the lifespan.

Social Status and Personality Links​

The study found a striking divergence between the two "socially oriented" dark traits:

• Psychopathy was associated with low social position — consistent with its links to impulsivity, recklessness, and antisocial behaviour that undermine social standing
• Narcissism was associated with high social position — consistent with its links to dominance, confidence, and self-promotion that can confer social advantages

This mirrors the finding from the Neumann et al. (2020) senator study: narcissism appears to facilitate the acquisition of status, while psychopathy tends to erode it.

Links to Broader Personality Frameworks​

The study also connected the Dark Triad to two broader personality models:

• In the HEXACO model: Narcissism was positively linked to Extraversion; Psychopathy was negatively linked to Conscientiousness — consistent with recklessness and disorganisation
• In Zuckerman's Alternative Five Factor Model (AFFM): Narcissism was linked to Activity and Sensation Seeking; Machiavellianism and Psychopathy were both linked to Aggressiveness and Sensation Seeking

Country-Level Correlates in 49 Countries (Jonason et al., 2020)​

Published in the Journal of Personality, this study by Jonason and colleagues used 11,723 participants from 49 countries (65.8% female, average age ~21.5) to ask: what country-level factors — economic, political, cultural — predict how dark a nation's average personality profile is?

Narcissism Is the Most Culturally Sensitive Trait​

The clearest finding was that narcissism was far more sensitive to country-level variables than psychopathy or Machiavellianism. The other two traits showed relatively stable levels across countries, but narcissism varied substantially — suggesting it is the dark trait most shaped by societal context.

Embeddedness and Hierarchy Drive Narcissism​

Countries with more embedded cultural values (strong group conformity, social cohesion, deference to tradition) and more hierarchical social structures (accepting of unequal power distribution) showed higher average narcissism levels. This initially seems counterintuitive — one might expect individualistic Western cultures to be more narcissistic — but the researchers interpreted it through an evolutionary lens: in societies where social hierarchy is accepted and status competition is built into the cultural fabric, narcissistic self-promotion is a more rewarded and therefore more common strategy.

The "Paradox" of Development and Gender​

The study found an intriguing paradox regarding gender and development:

• In less developed countries, overall narcissism levels were higher
• But in more developed countries, the gender gap in narcissism was larger — meaning men were considerably more narcissistic than women in wealthier, more equal societies

The authors argue this is more consistent with evolutionary models than social role models. In less developed countries, resource scarcity may push both men and women toward self-promotional strategies; in more developed countries, women have less need to compete narcissistically for resources, while men's evolutionary tendency toward status competition persists — widening the gap.

Democracy's Modest Role​

The study also found that political system (democracy vs. authoritarianism) had only a modest relationship with dark trait levels at the country level. This is notably weaker than what Neumann, Kaufman & ten Brinke (2025) found for the light traits in their 75-country study — suggesting that democratic institutions may have a stronger civilising effect on prosocial orientation than on directly suppressing antisocial tendencies