University Students - Dark Triad Traits And Ethical Attitudes

One of the personality models which has recently become very popular is the Dark Triad theory, which draws our attention to the fact that there are some personality traits which can indeed show the negative side of our personality. The theory encompasses three socially undesirable personality traits – Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy. These traits are, to a certain extent, recognisable in everyone, and are significant in a work context, too. The first part of our research aims to measure the manifestation of these traits in the students of the Faculty of Economics at the University of Debrecen. The students we questioned responded to 12 statements on the validated Dirty Dozen questionnaire, which is designed to measure the Dark Triad; following this, the points assigned to the answers were aggregated in order to establish whether the “three dark traits” were present or absent in their personalities. The other set of questions in our study concentrated on discovering the ethical attitudes of the students at the faculty. The work of Ludlum and his associates was the first to offer an analysis which included students’ evaluations of situations arising at the workplace and the extent to which they considered them unethical. Using the questionnaire prepared by these authors, we also asked our students to evaluate these situations, and in this way we were able to compare the ethical attitudes of American and Hungarian students. During the analysis we presented the results with average and standard deviation indicators, and calculated Pearson and Spearman correlational coefficients. During our work we also attempted to link the two subjects mentioned above, i.e. with those students who have a negative personality in terms of the three dark traits we were looking to establish what kind of value system they follow as regards workplace ethics. Here, too, we support our findings with correlation coefficients. According to our initial assumptions, those students who scored higher on the Dirty Dozen questionnaire, i.e. those who were strongly characterised by the Dark Triad personality traits, probably have a less ethical value system. On the basis of the responses we received, we only succeeded in establishing a weak link between these two factors. Our attempt, and also our research itself, is novel in several respects: firstly because to our knowledge no attempt has yet been made in Hungary to measure the existence of the Dark Triad of personality traits; secondly, because the presentation of the ethical attitudes of university students is also a relatively little-known and researched area, and thirdly, because thus far in Hungary there has been no work examining the relationship between these research questions.