http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0113135

Perhaps not surprising to those of us who are familiar with success of dark triad traits in seducing women and moving ahead in a career. The paper itself is a very interesting read for those who have an interest in the psychology of dark triad behaviors from an academic perspective.

The study consisted of American college students (median 19 years of age) which were separated in same sex groups. I would've liked to see mixed groups as well since conversational dominance is certainly a factor in raising your value in a group setting.

Some good quotes:

  • "One alternative is that individuals high in primary psychopathy specifically leverage opportunities to assess and manipulate new acquaintances by controlling conversations and gleaning useful information about them, that is, they use conversation as a means for exploitation, a pattern consistent with the pursuit of status through dominance."

  • "Two other effects are consistent with this strategic account: First, the aggregate word-production rate of triads was marginally greater as a function of the F1 LSRP score of the triad member with the highest F1 LSRP score. This suggests that conversations including people higher in primary psychopa- thy are generally ‘‘livelier’’ than conversations lacking such people. Thus, in non-directed zero-acquaintance small group situations such as our experiment (analogous to, for example, a real-world meet-and-greet context), individuals high in primary psychopathy may both produce and elicit a lot of ‘‘small talk’’, and then subsequently use the information gathered for personal gain, disregarding the welfare of their interlocutors. Second, at least among males, those higher in primary psychopathy produced fewer affect words during the conversation, suggesting that their higher speech production was less about sharing their own appraisals than about extracting information from others."

Note that this effect is present for those high in primary psychopathy, but not secondary psychopathy.