The Dark Side of the Rainbow: Homosexuals and Bisexuals Have Higher Dark Triad Traits Than Heterosexuals

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2021.111040

Commentary

Studies of psychopathology, Machiavellianism, and narcissism, which are also considered traits of the Dark Triad, reveal a malevolent, transcendent, and egocentric aspect of the personality.

However, little is known about the characteristics of the Dark Triad for individuals with different sexual orientations, and some research suggests that non-heterosexual individuals have Dark Triad profiles similar to heterosexual profiles.

In a cross-national sample (N = 4063; 1507 males, 2556 females; M age = 24.78, SD age = 7.55;) collected online via student and snowball sampling by 90.58% heterosexual, 5.74% bisexual, and 2.83% homosexual gender Aggregate analysis showed that bisexuals and homosexuals are more Machiavellian than heterosexuals.

Bisexuals were found to be more psychopathic and narcissistic than heterosexuals, and the only significant finding in the within-gender comparison was that self-identified bisexual women scored higher on all Dark Triad characteristics than heterosexual women.

This result supported the gender-shift hypothesis of same-sex sexual attraction in bisexual women, but not in lesbians or men.

Although the finding that bisexuals are the sexual orientation group with the most pronounced dark triad profile was contrary to what would be predicted by prosociality, the life history of these findings and the effects of minority stress are explained as competing hypotheses for the gender shift hypothesis.