The Big Bad Wolf? the relation between the Dark Triad and the interpersonal assessment of vulnerability

•We assessed the ability of dark personalities to conduct interpersonal assessments.•Dark personalities report using fewer cues to assess vulnerability.•Dark personalities primarily rely on non-verbal behavior when assessing others.•Dark personalities generally hold a negative perception of others.•Dark personalities performed at the level of chance when assessing others.

Although it is recognized that “dark personalities” engage in a high level of interpersonal manipulation and exploitation, little is known about whether or how they assess a target’s potential vulnerability prior to such behavior. This study examined the relation between the Dark Triad (psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism) and strategies used in the assessment of personality and emotional states related to vulnerability in others. Participants (N = 101) were asked to form impressions of stranger “targets” (with either high or low known vulnerability features) describing themselves across thin slice video, audio, or transcript modalities. Results indicated that dark personalities engaged in a relatively superficial interpersonal analysis and exhibited a “negative other” heuristic by which they generally perceived all targets as being weak and vulnerable to victimization. This negative other heuristic led to impairments in their ability to accurately assess certain features of others. We propose that instead of being keen “readers” of others, dark personalities may rely on their own personality and physical features (e.g., charm, good looks) to draw in vulnerable victims or adopt a “quantity over quality” strategy to find victims and then use active manipulation tactics to exploit them.