I read a result from a Google search that said, women are more drawn to men who exhibit traits of the dark tetrad. I would have laughed this off, but then I realised, it’s really plausible, most people who fall in the tetrad category also exude strength, ruggedness, control, fearlessness. These are great specs for a woman seeking a ‘real man’ until you realise it’s not just about that.
According to Wikipedia people scoring high on these traits are likely to create problems or be a source of social distress. They are easily seen as less compassionate, emphatic , greatly manipulative and somewhat callous in relating to people.
When I read the story of the Lekki ladies as it is referred to, I shuddered at what kind of thoughts the owner of the dog would have been occupied with as this act was being carried out. What takes a person to a place where dehumanising another person brings pleasure?
Let me start with describing some features of these four tetrads, just so I know we understand these traits and the context of my writing:
Sadism: Pleasure or enjoyment from inflicting pain, humiliation and suffering on others. There is also vicarious sadism which implies getting pleasure from pain or suffering not caused by them.
Narcissism: People who exhibit grandiosity, superiority, dominance with very little agreeableness/empathy.
Psychopathy: High impulsivity, thrill seeking, remorselessness and callous, pathological lying.
Machiavellianism: Manipulation/ exploitation for personal gain, absence of morals and empathy.
The great thing about psychology is that every act or behaviour carried out by man is researched and experimented until there is enough evidence and justification for expounding a theory around the subject matter. In other wards, there is a reason certain people in society exhibit these traits while others don’t.
Looking into these theories, I was more concerned with finding out what makes a person progress in a bad or wrong behaviour ? What makes a person pull out the eyes of a bird today and 5 years later, they are pulling out the eyes of a human being?
Without bothering you too much about theory, I looked into Bandura’s social learning theory and his take on reinforcement. And unlike Skinner’s ideas of positive reinforcement in operant conditioning, Bandura believes that a reinforcer can act backward in time. So this could allow us assume that the effect of the reinforcer is not on the response but in the person’s expectations of future response.
What I am trying to say here, is that a person who has developed certain traits because of childhood trauma or experiences, builds and consolidates on the levels of comfort they find in exhibiting these traits based on reinforcement that comes from people with similar traits and motives.
So what can be done ? Not all four of the tetrads are considered as personality disorders, but even as constructs they have their roots embedded in the symptoms of one or more disorders. What is important here is the fact that, for instance the DSM-5 states that symptoms of a personality disorder like ‘anti- social personality disorder’ starts to manifest from age 15 years. This means that, something can be done , if one is to delve deeper into Banduras views on reinforcement.
In the next blog I want to explore options . What do we look out for? And what can we do with the information we have. In other words, how can we help the young ones like the teenagers that are still under our care?