Dark triad, self-concealment, and interpersonal difficulties in university students
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Date
2023
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UMT, Lahore
Abstract
Personality and career preferences have been linked for a long time as a person's personality traits can have a significant impact on their career choices and job satisfaction. The main focus of this research was to find out dark triad personality traits, self-concealment and interpersonal difficulties in university students. For the study, 438 participants male and female (52.5%, 47.5%) were selected through stratified random sampling with the age range of 18-25 (M= 20.91, SD= 1.66), from business major (32%), law major (34.2%), and medicine major (33.8%). The measures consisted of short dark triad scale (Jones & Paulhus, 2014), self-concealment scale (Javed & Jabeen, 2018) and interpersonal difficulties scale (Saleem et al., 2014) and a demographic form. The research was conducted in different private and government universities of Lahore from March 2023 to June 2023. The study hypotheses proposed a positive relationship between dark triad traits, self-concealment, and interpersonal difficulties. Pearson correlation analysis supported a significant positive correlation between dark triad personality and interpersonal difficulties. Similarly, self-concealment showed a positive association with interpersonal difficulties. However no significant relationship was found between dark triad and self-concealment. Moreover, regression analysis suggested that self-concealment and dark triad were significant predictors interpersonal difficulties which shows that hiding of personal information from others may play a significant role in fostering problematic interpersonal relations. This study also highlighted significant finding of differences between scores on dark triad across the subjects of medical, business and law disciplines and ANOVA results revealed law students had more dark triad traits as compared to business and medical students. These findings have important implications for university students’ well-being and social functioning particularly in collectivistic cultures. Recognizing the presence of dark triad traits and self-concealment in students may help identify those at risk of experiencing interpersonal challenges and guide targeted interventions to improve social skills and emotional expression. Limitations of the study include the reliance on self-report measures, which might be susceptible to response bias, and the cross-sectional design that limits causal inferences. Future research should consider longitudinal investigations to examine the temporal relationships between these personality traits and interpersonal difficulties. In conclusion, this study sheds light on the importance of relationship between dark triad traits, self concealment, and interpersonal difficulties in university students. This would facilitate understanding of these dynamics for educators, counselors to create better psychological interventions to support students' emotional and social well-being, fostering a healthier and more positive academic environment in educational institutions.