Dark and Strong?! The associations between dark personality traits, mental toughness and resilience in Hungarian student, employee, leader, and military samples

Previous research has mainly focused on the negative correlates of dark triad (DT) personality traits. However, recent findings indicate that DT have positive, adaptive aspects. Specifically, empirical studies revealed a positive relationship between subclinical narcissism and mental toughness. Increased mental toughness is connected to various positive outcomes such as increased physical activity, lower symptoms of depression, and perceived stress. The current work extends these findings by testing a mediation model where subclinical narcissism associates with resilience through mental toughness. Two studies with five independent samples (NTOTAL = 1009) were conducted. Participants who had high levels of narcissism were more mentally tough and resilient than participants who had low levels of narcissism. Subclinical psychopathy and Machiavellianism were largely unrelated to mental toughness and resilience. These studies contribute to the theory on dark personality traits by providing further evidence of the positive aspects of subclinical narcissism.