Can you tell if you're working with a narcissist or a psychopath? A new study suggests that people's job choices may offer some clues, especially in fields built on leadership and persuasion such as business, politics, and law, where such darker traits are more common. Those in creative fields or nature-focused work may be more likely to encounter individuals with a Machiavellian way of thinking, according to findings published in Personality and Individual Differences.

Mapping career-trait associations

The cold, callous, and sometimes manipulative behavior of people we encounter in everyday life, including at work, may stem from a set of personality traits known as the dark triad--psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism. Studies have long linked these traits to how people behave and how they lead at their workplace. However, much of the earlier research treated all three as broad, one-size-fits-all traits.

To gain a more nuanced answer to the question of whether our personality traits quietly steer us toward certain careers, a team of researchers from Singapore and the United States broke the dark traits triad into seven smaller facets: psychopathy split into boldness, meanness, and disinhibition, along with Machiavellian views and tactics and narcissistic admiration and rivalry.

The team first surveyed more than 600 undergraduate students at a large U.S. university, spanning a spectrum of majors from biology and psychology to business and political science, to assess their personality traits. Then two weeks later, the same participants completed a detailed survey on their career interests, based on the SETPOINT framework, which groups careers into seven domains: health science, creative expression, technology, people, organization, influence, and nature.

Once the data were collected, the researchers used network analysis to trace how personality traits and career interests connect and influence one another. They were also on the lookout for bridge nodes, the key links that served as gateways between specific traits and the career paths people are drawn to.

Regularized partial correlation (graphical LASSO) network of the Dark Triad facets and SETPOINT interest dimensions. Credit: Personality and Individual Differences (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2026.113728

In psychopathy, people with boldness--confident, composed under pressure, and naturally influential--tended to gravitate toward health science. Those with meanness, characterized by low empathy and hostility, showed a stronger interest in technology and hands-on mechanical work. Disinhibition, the impulsive facet, was linked to creative expression, such as arts and design, alongside practical, hands-on roles.

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