Your style of humour could indicate whether you are a narcissist or psychopath, study finds

What makes you laugh may indicate whether you’re a narcissist or a psychopath, a new study has found.

Researchers at Studio Psi.Co. in Italy examined the relationship between comedic style descriptors and ‘dark triad’ personality traits.

These are psychopathy, defined by lack of empathy and antisocial behavior; narcissism, an egocentric personality style; and Machiavellianism, demonstrating manipulation and indifference to morality.

The psychologists argue that those who exhibit these traits can use humor to belittle others or elevate themselves in a more socially acceptable way than outright attacking or boasting.

The authors wrote: ‘Machiavellianism and psychopathy correlated positively with the dark styles.

‘Psychopathy showed the strongest positive correlations with the mocking styles; satire, sarcasm and cynicism.

Machiavellianism was the best predictor of irony and was unrelated to the other comic strips.

‘Narcissism correlated especially significantly with the lighter styles, which were the best predictors of humor and humor, while it was not related to nonsense.’

The researchers gave 715 adults two questionnaires; one to determine their comedic style and the other to uncover any dark personality traits.

They used statistical analysis to determine a correlation between the two.

The eight comic styles were defined in a 2018 studyand were split into ‘lighter’ and ‘darker’ styles.

The four lighter styles are ‘fun’, ‘humour’, ‘nonsense’ and ‘white’, which share a foundation of benevolence and positive emotions.

The darker styles are “irony,” “satire,” “sarcasm,” and “cynicism,” all of which involve ridicule and ridicule.

The analysis, published in June in Personality and individual differencesshowed links between each style and the dark triad of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism.

Narcissism was associated with two of the lighter styles; fun and, even better, humor.

Witty remarks involve coming up with unexpected punchlines, which indicate creativity and intelligence.

There was also a small correlation with the dark style of satire, which can be conjured up without damaging the interpersonal relationships highly regarded by narcissists.

The authors wrote: “Narcissists can use positive humor as a way to positively improve their own reputation when interacting with others.”

Psychopathy was strongly associated with dark styles of irony, sarcasm and cynicism.

These aggressive, “smiling” humor styles reinforce that psychopaths have little empathy and are a natural bully.

The psychotherapists wrote: “Psychopaths can use this kind of humor to lower the status of others without regard for the feelings of others, because they are characterized by deficits in emotional functioning and antisocial behavior.”

Machiavellianism was also linked to irony and cynicism, with a stronger correlation with the former.

The researchers argue that this is because irony is used to emphasize the weaknesses of others in a socially acceptable way that does not tarnish one’s own reputation.

“Machiavellianism is characterized by manipulative behavior, and these individuals may use this form of humor to control others,” they wrote.

It was also positively related to humor, which involves playing with ideas, and it requires the impulse control and cognitive ability demonstrated by this personality trait.

While Machiavellianism was negatively related to benevolent humor, treat those weaknesses kindly.

The researchers claim this reinforces how Machiavellians have no interest in helping others with their problems.

Since none of the study participants showed particularly high levels of any of the three dark personality traits, future research could explore patterns involving a more extreme group.