Examining the association between the dark triad personality traits and cardiovascular reactivity to acute psychological stress.

The current study aimed to examine the influence of Dark Triad traits on psychological and cardiovascular reactivity to acute psychological stress. Participants (N = 139, 52.5% women) completed a repeated measures cardiovascular reactivity protocol consisting of a resting baseline phase and a psychological stressor phase comprised of a mental arithmetic task with social evaluation. Self-reported stress and anxiety expectations were assessed prior to the stressor, while subjective stress and anxiety experiences were assessed following the task. Systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), mean arterial pressure (MAP), and heart rate (HR) were measured throughout the protocol for calculation of cardiovascular reactivity (delta method). Narcissism was significantly associated with lower self-reported anxiety as well as reduced SBP and MAP reactivity to stress. Psychopathy was associated with lower self-reported stress and attenuated HR responses. Machiavellianism was not associated with either psychological or cardiovascular stress responses. In follow-up sensitivity analyses, all Dark Triad traits were modeled simultaneously. The associations between narcissism and SBP reactivity, and between psychopathy and self-reported stress became non-significant, indicating that these associations were not robust in more stringent analyses. However, all other effects remained significant in follow-up analyses. These findings indicate that narcissism and psychopathy are associated with individual differences in psychophysiological stress reactivity, and demonstrate some independent predictive utility beyond shared variance within the Dark Triad.