The Dark Triad of personality and criminal and delinquent behavior: Preregistered systematic review and three-level meta-analysis

The Dark Triad (DT) of personality (Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy) has previously been linked to delinquent behavior. This study is the first to review the associations between DT and criminal behavior resulting in arrest. Multi-tiered literature searches were conducted in seven databases, using preregistered search expressions. A systematic review and three-level meta-analysis (N = 15,862; 302 effects from 39 studies, originating from 15 countries) quantified the links between DT traits and criminality and examined DT measures, type of crime, sample characteristics, age, and country as effect moderators. Results indicated that higher DT scores are linked to increased criminal behavior (r = 0.23, 95 % CI [0.16, 0.30]), with psychopathy showing the strongest association (r = 0.32, [0.25, 0.39]), followed by Machiavellianism (r = 0.21, [0.13, 0.28]) and narcissism (r = 0.16, [0.09, 0.23]). Effect-moderator analysis identified participant age as a key factor for explaining cross-study effect heterogeneity. Publication bias was not a relevant issue. The findings underscore the conceptual distinctiveness of DT personality traits; suggest the importance of ecologically valid samples, such as incarcerated individuals, over substitute samples (e.g., students); and highlight the need for refined measures of criminal behavior and for testing the suitability of brief DT scales