Dark Personalities and Cognitive Styles: Two Distinct Dispositions Toward Antisocial Behaviour

Previous research documented that Dark Tetrad (DT) traits and diminished cognitive abilities represent risk factors for antisocial behaviour. In the present cross-sectional study we tested the hypothesis that cognitive styles reflected in overconfidence, intuitive, simplistic, and fast thinking may mediate the links between DT and antisocial behaviour (N = 514). Our results showed that DT traits, with an emphasis on sadism and psychopathy, are positively correlated with antisocial behaviour, and certain cognitive styles: positive associations with overconfidence in physical appearance and dichotomous thinking and negative with overconfidence in moral quality. Detected correlations were mostly low in effect sizes. Furthermore, cognitive styles like incorrect responses on cognitive reflection test and various types of overconfidence (in physical appearance, intellectual ability and cognitive reflection) predicted antisocial behaviour in regression models. However, the path analysis showed that cognitive styles did not mediate the associations between DT traits and antisocial behaviour. Hence, the results of present research suggest that dark personality characteristics and cognitive styles like overconfidence and diminished logical reasoning are distinct risk factors for antisocial behaviour which has both conceptual and practical implications.