Benefit perceptions of risk, dark triad personality traits, and gambling behavior

Individual differences in dark triad traits – Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy – have been robustly associated with increased risk-taking, including gambling. Drawing on reinforcement sensitivity theory, we propose that dark triad traits facilitate perceptions of benefits from risk-taking, which in turn motivate elevated gambling behaviors. Among 293 community members recruited from a crowdsourcing platform, we demonstrate that zero-sum associations between individual differences in dark triad traits and benefit perceptions of risk are large (rs = .34 to .48), and both dark triad traits and benefit perceptions of risk are associated with behavioral gambling decisions in a blackjack task (rs = .27 to .47). Further, we show that the association of dark triad traits and gambling behavior is mediated by benefit perceptions of risk-taking. Gender analyses showed stronger associations of dark triad traits and benefit perceptions of risk among men than women, and that benefit perceptions of risk mediate associations of dark triad traits and gambling among men, but not women. Taken together, results suggest that dark triad traits appear to be a risk factor for gambling behaviors, particularly among men, and attitudes regarding benefit perceptions of risk may be a potentially fruitful target of clinical intervention.