Concomitance of pathological behaviours on the Internet and tendencies towards personality disorders among digital natives

This study explore the influence of Dark Triad traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) and internet addiction on online behaviours of adult digital natives from Poland. The research question was: is it relation straightforward or do different personality traits share online behaviours most typical for specific traits? Hypothesis 1: People scoring high on one feature of the Dark Triad scale present online behaviours typical for that trait but also for other components of the Dark Triad. Hypothesis 2: Internet addiction influences online behaviours typical of Dark Triad traits. Randomly selected participants completed research that included assessing: narcissism (NPI-40 test), Machiavellianism (Mach IV), psychopathy (LSRP), Internet addiction (IAT) and self-report measures concerning selected online behaviours. The results present that the analysed personality traits influence online activities in a complex manner, with diffusion of each psychological trait on behaviours typical for other traits. Both hypotheses were proved and research question answered in the affirmative.