Overview

• Researchers surveyed 144,576 Americans and drew on global data from 1.79 million participants across 183 countries to assess personality patterns.
• They developed a unified “D score” to measure overlapping dark traits including psychopathy, narcissism, Machiavellianism and sadism.
• Nevada recorded the highest average D score at 2.26 out of 5, followed by New York, Texas and South Dakota, while Vermont had the lowest at 1.96.
• Analysis shows states with elevated dark traits also report higher rates of corruption, poverty, income inequality and violent crime.
• The authors propose that reducing corruption and inequality could foster lower levels of dark personality traits among citizens.