Picture two coworkers with similar salaries. One saves steadily, pays bills on time, and feels secure about the future. The other spends impulsively, dodges long-term planning, and feels perpetually behind. Personality differences are not the whole story behind such gaps, but a growing body of research suggests they play a part. A recent study set out to examine how a particular cluster of socially aversive personality traits relates to the way people manage money and how financially well-off they feel.
The work, published in Psychological Thought, was conducted by Radka Čopková of the Faculty of Economics at the Technical University of Košice in Slovakia. She focused on a set of traits psychologists call the “Dark Triad” and asked whether financial habits and people’s sense of their own social standing might help explain why these traits connect to financial satisfaction.
What the “Dark Triad” means
The Dark Triad is a framework for three personality traits that share a self-centered, manipulative streak but differ in important ways. Machiavellianism describes a calculating, strategic mindset focused on power and long-term gain. Narcissism involves grandiosity, a hunger for admiration, and a sense of superiority. Psychopathy is marked by impulsivity, shallow emotions, and difficulty pursuing long-term goals.
Earlier research has tied each trait to money in distinct ways. People high in Machiavellianism tend to treat money as a tool and plan strategically. Those high in narcissism often view wealth as a marker of prestige and may spend impulsively to maintain an image. People high in psychopathy tend toward chaotic, risk-prone financial behavior, including gambling. Čopková wanted to see how these patterns played out in a large sample and whether two factors in particular helped link the traits to financial well-being.
Those two factors were money management, meaning how people handle saving, insurance, credit, and day-to-day cash flow, and perceived socioeconomic status, meaning how high or low a person rates their own position on the social and economic ladder, regardless of their actual income.
How the study was done
Čopková analyzed responses from 1,550 adults in Slovakia, ranging in age from 17 to 86, with an average age of about 41. Roughly 62 percent were women. Participants were recruited through convenience and snowball sampling, meaning they were not drawn randomly from the population, and they completed an online questionnaire. To take part, a person needed to have independent control over their own finances.
The survey included several established measures. One assessed the three Dark Triad traits through 27 statements such as “I like to skilfully manipulate people” and “I know I am special.” Another gauged money management across saving, insurance, credit, and cash flow. A third measured financial well-being, defined here as a person’s sense of being able to maintain their standard of living, meet obligations, and feel secure about the future. Participants also rated their own socioeconomic standing using a scale that asks people to place themselves on a ladder representing society.
To analyze the data, Čopková used correlations to map relationships between traits and financial measures, then ran a statistical technique called mediation analysis. Mediation analysis tries to trace a pathway: rather than simply asking whether trait A relates to outcome C, it asks whether trait A relates to some middle factor B, which in turn relates to outcome C. In this case, the middle factors were money management and perceived status.
Three traits, three different patterns
The results suggest each trait carries its own financial signature. People scoring higher in Machiavellianism tended to manage money somewhat better, especially when it came to saving and handling cash flow, though they struggled more with credit management. Yet stronger Machiavellian tendencies were directly linked to lower financial well-being. Čopková interprets this as possibly reflecting a relentless pursuit of wealth, in which money becomes an object of desire that is never quite satisfying. Perceived socioeconomic status showed no meaningful link to this trait.
Narcissism showed a more favorable financial profile. People higher in narcissism tended to manage money better, particularly saving and insurance, and they rated their own social standing higher. The mediation analysis indicated that the positive connection between narcissism and financial well-being ran through these two channels: higher narcissism was associated with stronger money management and a more elevated sense of status, and both of those were in turn associated with greater financial well-being. A more detailed look added a wrinkle: while better saving and insurance management strengthened well-being, narcissism was also tied to poorer cash flow management, which pulled in the opposite direction.
Psychopathy presented the most consistently negative picture. Higher psychopathy was associated with weaker money management across every category measured, with lower perceived status, and with lower financial well-being. The analysis suggested that the link between psychopathy and reduced financial well-being operated through these poorer money habits and a diminished sense of standing. One unexpected contrast appeared here as well: higher psychopathy was tied to somewhat better cash flow management, which was associated with greater satisfaction, partly offsetting the broader negative trend.
An important caveat about strength
Čopková is direct about a limitation that shapes how the findings should be read. While many of the correlations were statistically significant, their effect sizes were weak. As she writes, for relationships this small “it is not possible to speak of robust associations; rather, we can only consider the directionality of these relationships as a potential trend.” In plain terms, the patterns point in certain directions, but personality traits account for only a sliver of the differences in how people handle money and how they feel about their finances.
Several other limitations also apply. The study relied on self-reported answers, which may not match people’s actual behavior, and traits viewed as undesirable can prompt people to answer in socially acceptable ways. The sample was drawn from Slovakia through non-random methods, and some of the measurement tools have not been fully adapted to the Slovak population. Most important, the design was correlational. As Čopková notes, “correlation does not imply causation,” so the study cannot establish that these traits cause particular financial decisions. She suggests longitudinal or experimental research to test cause and effect more directly.
What it might mean in practice
Čopková proposes that financial guidance could be tailored to personality. For people with stronger psychopathic tendencies, who lean toward impulsive spending, she suggests self-regulation techniques, delayed-gratification training, and long-term planning exercises. For those higher in narcissism, who may treat money as a status symbol and overestimate their standing, she recommends building awareness of the long-term consequences of spending and encouraging realistic self-assessment of expenses. For those higher in Machiavellianism, who plan strategically but may bend ethical rules, she points to interventions emphasizing the long-term costs of unethical behavior.
Across all three, the study highlights how a person’s subjective sense of their financial standing, not just their actual resources, is closely tied to how well-off they feel. That points toward confidence-building and realistic self-evaluation as possible tools for improving financial well-being. These suggestions remain tentative, resting on associations that are real but modest in size.
