Narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism are the so-called “dark triad” of personality traits. People who score highly on the dark triad are vain, callous and manipulative and are known to act by impulsivity, opportunism and selfishness. Such individuals can succeed in the workplace, while failing to get on with others.

Though these traits can bring advantages to the individual, they are clearly detrimental to those around them. So it’s important to understand what fosters them.

Melissa Gluck at the University of Florida and her colleagues gathered evidence suggesting that sexism — “and the socially-supported, unearned male power and privilege that sexism reflects” — is linked to higher scores on measures of the dark triad. “If scholars can demonstrate that these malevolent traits are partly learned by growing up in sexist cultures, agents of personal and social change can help people recognise, understand, alter and replace these malevolent aspects of humanity,” the researchers write.

As predicted, based on earlier findings, the men scored higher for dark traits than the women. Also as expected, the men displayed more sexism. For both men and women, there was a correlation between their overall sexism scores and their dark triad ratings.

The new study was published in Personality and Individual Differences.