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From the article: Many factors can contribute to a person’s eating habits, including personality traits. The Dark Triad personality traits of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism have been linked to many negative outcomes, but their relationship to disordered eating has been underexplored. A study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health looks at how these traits related to uncontrolled, restrained, and emotional eating.

Eating disorders have been linked to personality traits before, such as high neuroticism, perfectionism, lower self-esteem, and introversion. Despite this, research focusing on the eating patterns of people high in Dark Triad personality traits has been minimal. Dark Triad personality traits have been linked to many negative behaviors and outcomes for people, including impulsivity, manipulation, and selfishness.

Previous research has explored meat eating habits of Dark Triad personality traits using German samples, and this research aims to delve deeper into how these personality traits relate to disordered eating and eating disorders.

What are the links between eating habits and triad traits?

Ehhh I don't think it's new nor is it a study sturdy enough to stand (it even says itself). It seems like a just scratching the surface title to something with a lot more complexity that won't become more apparent until later.

that there are some :shrug:

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That these individuals do not get their sustenance from the suffering of others but actually food.

It would make sense as psychopaths have disordered relations to other things that provide stimulation. They engage in risky behavior, tend to do drugs, and seek out sex more so than normal people.

Well not ALL of their sustenance anyway

Where does it say that in the comment?

It doesn’t I was just making a goofy goof

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For once Dark Triads personality traits are linked to a bad thing. I was starting to think psycopathy was a superpower.

Yeah, look at the guy in the stock photo. Looks like someone who has very weird eating habits!

Yeah correlation not causation is my guess…

Weren't the dark triads personality traits debunked as primarily abuse survivor indicators?

I agree it’s very complex. But one of my best friends was diagnosed with an APD (more sociopathy than anything else) and he suffered from anorexia when he was in high school.

It’s definitely interesting.

Meh, that doesn’t sound right. One of my best friends is a diagnosed APD. According to him, he didn’t endure any real childhood abuse. He told me once that he felt that it was 70% nature and 30% nurture.

No offense, but just one person's "feelings" of themself are useful, but not objective.

I found the article: https://www.psypost.org/2021/01/dark-personality-traits-might-help-explain-the-link-between-childhood-neglect-and-malevolent-creativity-59431

I get that, it’s definitely anecdotal!

It's somewhat comforting that it's 30% nurture in their opinion even if it's just one data point. Gives me hope for other people who are caught up in that cycle.

Yeah, but I should say while he wasn’t sexually or physically abused, he did raise himself as a parent died when he was 5, and the other one went back to school and then worked all the time. So, he basically raised himself. I guess that could be considered abuse in some way.

Definitely neglect at least. Neglect and abuse cause damage in similar ways.

Yeah, I’d agree with that! But despite being a sociopath, he’s always been very helpful to me and spent a great deal of time tutoring me when I was in college for free. I think I’m his longest lasting friendship. But it’s been very interesting seeing him grow up and mature. We’ve been friends for over a decade now, and when we were younger his disorder definitely came across. Now that we’re in our 30s, he’s chilled out a lot. I’m not sure how to articulate it other than him at 25 and 35 are pretty different.

Thank you for this article. I had never encountered t3 term “malevolent creativity” before.

My brother and I, in response to what we now know is called gaslighting, used to call our mom an “evil genius” for the creative ways she messed with our minds.

I’m glad to have a more clinical term for the characteristic that lead to that behavior.

Legit question- do ANY studies prove causation?

Yeah it's a nice term for something pretty heinous.

I'm sorry you had to deal with that. Childhood experiences stay with us our whole lives, but they don't have to define us.

Often, those who are subjected to abuse and neglect when they are young repeat the behavior. So don't blame yourself if you've inadvertently picked up any bad behaviors. Reenacting trauma and bad experiences is a way for young minds to try to get some sense of control.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3330499/

When young people are abused or neglected, it can be hard for their minds to come to terms with the reality of it.

Many reenact the behavior. That's why you often hear of the abused becoming abusers. Reenacting gives then some sense of control again, and tries to make the reality make sense to them.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3330499/

But as they grow older, like your friend, the brain develops, and perception becomes better. They have a chance of catching themselves and changing for the better, like your friend.

Some do, and some don't. Imo it explains a lot of the people in prison. They were not able to catch themselves, so society eventually had to.

I can't speak for APD, but in BPD (which is a cluster B personality disorder), up to 30% of patients with the disorder reported no abuse of any kind during their childhood.

So there is some evidence that it is nature for some individuals. It's politically incorrect to say that these days (especially here on reddit), but the wonderful thing about science is it doesn't care what your ideology tells you is true.

Anti-science folks, of course, will still find any sliver of doubt to cling to their beliefs that everything bad with the world can be blamed on "bad parenting".

Correct, most cannibals are in fact anorexic. .

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That makes sense!

That’s interesting. I haven’t heard that, I learned that BPD is usually caused by sort of isolated trauma, typically.

There's some use..

Surgeons tend to have highest levels of psychopathy...

As do politicians... oops not a good thing...