The Adventure of the Dark Factor
Strap in folks, it's time for some science! Specifically, psychology. It's been understood in the scientific world for some time that a general factor of intelligence, or "g-factor", exists. Put simply, people who score highly on one test of intelligence also tend to score high on other tests of intelligence. This means that you can reliably test intelligence using any kind of intelligence test as long as it is complex enough.
This week I read about a 2018 paper which uses the same principle but for a different area of the human personality: malevolence. The researched have come up with the idea of a general dark factor of personality or "D-factor". The use of the word 'dark' comes from personality psychologists who use "dark traits" to mean to describe characteristics of people who display behavior which is ethically or morally questionable.
It can be quite complicated when you delve into the details of the paper but the idea is that people who score high on the D-factor will not be motivated to help other people unless it benefits themselves and won't be happy for the success of others. In other words, if you score highly on the D-factor test then you are likely not a nice person.
"Where's all this going?" I hear you ask. Well, I discovered you can take a D-factor test and I have duly taken said test. Thanks to science, I can now find out if I'm evil...
When you take the full test you are given a score with a number between 1 and 5 with 1 being very low and 5 being very high. I scored 2.3 which they describe as "very low". Hurrah, I'm a good person after all!
The test also gives you scores for specific character traits and compares them to the other 214,505 people who have taken the test. I found some of these sections particularly interesting. For most of the traits I was around about the middle with about half of participants being more egotistical and entitled than me and about half being less than me.
It turns out that I'm more greedy than 73% of participants. They helpfully define greed as "an insatiable desire for more resources, monetary or other". I know I am greedy when it comes to food and I regularly eat more than is sensible. Am I greedy when it comes to money? Perhaps I am. Would I have applied for a more senior role at work if it didn't come with a significant pay rise? It's a hypothetical question that's hard to answer. I was certainly not sure about applying and I think it was probably the financial side of things which pushed me to apply. At the same time though I wonder if one can be that greedy if you are as lazy as I often am!
In several of the traits I am significantly low down in the ranking with three quarters of participants being more narcissistic than me. This isn't really much of a surprise because I generally have a low opinion of myself and I think by definition narcissists have the opposite view. It also turns out that I am not a psychopath with 88% of participants scoring higher than me for that trait. This means that I am not callous, show remorse and concern for others.
In summary, it turns out I'm a good person which is always nice to hear.
Of course, there's no guarantee that this is accurate. Psychology is not an exact science and this idea is still very much in the research stages. Some psychologists may argue that personality is a complicated concept which can't be defined by answering some questions. Still, this sort of test makes you consider your own personality and I always strive to be a good person and I suppose if you try to be good you are already on the way to succeeding.
You can read an article about the study which goes deeper into the science than I have on Scientific American and if you want to take the test for yourself go here.
This week I read about a 2018 paper which uses the same principle but for a different area of the human personality: malevolence. The researched have come up with the idea of a general dark factor of personality or "D-factor". The use of the word 'dark' comes from personality psychologists who use "dark traits" to mean to describe characteristics of people who display behavior which is ethically or morally questionable.
It can be quite complicated when you delve into the details of the paper but the idea is that people who score high on the D-factor will not be motivated to help other people unless it benefits themselves and won't be happy for the success of others. In other words, if you score highly on the D-factor test then you are likely not a nice person.
"Where's all this going?" I hear you ask. Well, I discovered you can take a D-factor test and I have duly taken said test. Thanks to science, I can now find out if I'm evil...
When you take the full test you are given a score with a number between 1 and 5 with 1 being very low and 5 being very high. I scored 2.3 which they describe as "very low". Hurrah, I'm a good person after all!
The test also gives you scores for specific character traits and compares them to the other 214,505 people who have taken the test. I found some of these sections particularly interesting. For most of the traits I was around about the middle with about half of participants being more egotistical and entitled than me and about half being less than me.
It turns out that I'm more greedy than 73% of participants. They helpfully define greed as "an insatiable desire for more resources, monetary or other". I know I am greedy when it comes to food and I regularly eat more than is sensible. Am I greedy when it comes to money? Perhaps I am. Would I have applied for a more senior role at work if it didn't come with a significant pay rise? It's a hypothetical question that's hard to answer. I was certainly not sure about applying and I think it was probably the financial side of things which pushed me to apply. At the same time though I wonder if one can be that greedy if you are as lazy as I often am!
In several of the traits I am significantly low down in the ranking with three quarters of participants being more narcissistic than me. This isn't really much of a surprise because I generally have a low opinion of myself and I think by definition narcissists have the opposite view. It also turns out that I am not a psychopath with 88% of participants scoring higher than me for that trait. This means that I am not callous, show remorse and concern for others.
In summary, it turns out I'm a good person which is always nice to hear.
Of course, there's no guarantee that this is accurate. Psychology is not an exact science and this idea is still very much in the research stages. Some psychologists may argue that personality is a complicated concept which can't be defined by answering some questions. Still, this sort of test makes you consider your own personality and I always strive to be a good person and I suppose if you try to be good you are already on the way to succeeding.
You can read an article about the study which goes deeper into the science than I have on Scientific American and if you want to take the test for yourself go here.
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