Psychology
of People who likes to work at Nights
Night
owls more likely to have Dark Triad of personality traits
Watch
out for the creatures of the night – those who prefer to stay up late tend to
have more evil personality traits than those who prefer to be early risers,
according to research.
Psychologists have found that people who are often described
as “night owls” display more signs of narcissism, Machiavellianism and
psychopathic tendencies than those who are “morning larks”.
The scientists suggest these reason for these traits, known
as the Dark Triad, being more prevalent in those who do better in the night may
be linked to our evolutionary past.
They claim that the hours of darkness may have helped to
conceal those who adopted a “cheaters strategy” while living in groups.
Some social animals will use the cover of darkness to steal
females away from more dominant males. This behaviour was also recently spotted
in rhinos in Africa.
Dr Peter Jonason, a psychologist at the University of
Western Sydney, said: “It could be adaptively effective for anyone pursuing a
fast life strategy like that embodied in the Dark Triad to occupy and exploit a
lowlight environment where others are sleeping and have diminished cognitive
functioning.
“Such
features of the night may facilitate the casual sex, mate-poaching, and
risk-taking the Dark Triad traits are linked to.
“In
short, those high on the Dark Triad traits, like many other predators such as
lions, African hunting dogs and scorpions, are creatures of the night.”
Dr Jonason and his colleagues, whose research is published
in the journal of Personality and Individual Differences, surveyed 263
students, asking them to complete a series of standard personality tests
designed to test their score for the Dark Triad traits.
They were rated on scales for narcissism, the tendency to
seek admiration and special treatment; Machiavellianism, a desire to manipulate
others; and psychopathy, an inclination towards callousness and insensitivity.
To test each, they were asked to rate their agreement with
statements like: “I have a natural talent for influencing people”, “I could
beat a lie detector” and “people suffering from incurable diseases should have
the choice of being put painlessly to death”.
The volunteers were also asked to complete a questionnaire
about how alert they felt at different times of the day and how late they
stayed up at night.
The study revealed that those with a darker personality
score tended to say they functioned more effectively in the evening.
They also found that those who stayed up later tended to
have a higher sense of entitlement and seemed to be more exploitative.
They could find no evidence, however, that the traits were
linked to the participants gender, ruling out the possibility that the tendency
to plot and act in the night time had its roots in sexual evolution.
Previous research has suggested that people who thrive at
night tend also to be more intelligent.
Combined with the other darker personality traits, this
could be a dangerous mix.
Notorious leaders including Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin
are among those who are known to have stayed up late at night and had displayed
these dark personality traits.
Other night owls such as Bill Clinton, the former US
president, and Winston Churchill, the former British prime minister, have often
been accused of showing less extreme elements of at least some of these traits.
However, there are some examples of night owls where these
negative traits may be harder to spot.
President
Barack Obama is reputed to a night owl, as was Elvis Presley and James Joyce.
Famous morning larks include Napoleon, Ernest Hemingway and
George W Bush.
Dr Jonason added: “We felt that providing evidence of such
an odd relationship would better make our case that being high on the Dark
Triad might be adaptive in selecting certain niches.
"I
think it is too simplistic to think that people are either/or. People
everywhere can exhibit these traits”.
"Those
who want to exploit others should have a bias towards choosing the night-time
niche because the night time means fewer people are awake to detect
exploitation."
Other research has shown that evening types tend to be more
extrovert and creative types such as poets, artists and personalities.
Morning types were often found in roles like civil servants
and accountants.
Findings from Surrey University have suggested that people’s
tendency to be night owls or morning larks is determined by their genes.
Professor Jim Horne, a sleep researcher at Loughborough
University, said: “There are quite a lot of things associated with the time we
go to bed and get up.
“People
who are shorter sleepers tend to be a bit more manic about things and tend to
take risks and have delusions of grandeur.
“Morning
types are more rigid and less adaptable in their body clocks while evening
types are better able to deal with shift work and jet lag.
"In
reality, the majority of people are neither one or the other. Genes probably
only account for about 10 per cent of it, but whether we are night owls or
morning larks tends to change with age.
“We
tend to go to bed later when we are younger. Students also tend to be more full
of bravado and so this may have influenced these results.
“It
would be interesting to see if morning types are more trustworthy and more
upstanding citizens because these are the people who get up to go to work on
time and go to church perhaps."
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