RESEARCH PAPER
Am I wrong? I'm never wrong: The relationship between Dark Triad, child-parent conflict, parental burnout, and perceived social support in a sample of Japanese parents
1
Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (UADE), Buenos Aires, Argentina
2
Faculty of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan
Submission date: 2025-02-11
Final revision date: 2026-02-14
Acceptance date: 2026-02-15
Online publication date: 2026-04-22
Corresponding author
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Background:
The Dark Triad of personality has been related to various negative social outcomes, including challenges in interpersonal situations, such as conflicts within the family and parenting dynamics. The present study aimed to explore the relationship between dark personality traits, child-parent relationships, and parental burnout, while considering the potential moderating effect of perceived social support.
Participants and procedure:
A sample of 277 Japanese parents (49.5% men, 50.5% women), aged 20 to 39 years (M = 31.13, SD = 4.9), with children between 1 and 5 years old (toddlers or preschoolers), completed an online survey. Dark Triad traits were assessed using the Japanese version of the Dark Triad Dirty Dozen, perceived social support with the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, parental burnout with the Parental Burnout Assessment, and child-parent conflict and closeness using the Child-Parent Relationship Scale.
Results:
The results showed that higher levels of dark personality traits were associated with greater conflict in the child-parent relationship as well as higher levels of parental burnout. Interestingly, for parents high in Dark Triad traits, greater perceived social support was associated with higher levels of child-parent conflict.
Conclusions:
The findings highlight the complexity of social support in the context of dark personalities, as it may fail to mitigate the harmful effects of conflictual family relationships.
The Dark Triad of personality has been related to various negative social outcomes, including challenges in interpersonal situations, such as conflicts within the family and parenting dynamics. The present study aimed to explore the relationship between dark personality traits, child-parent relationships, and parental burnout, while considering the potential moderating effect of perceived social support.
Participants and procedure:
A sample of 277 Japanese parents (49.5% men, 50.5% women), aged 20 to 39 years (M = 31.13, SD = 4.9), with children between 1 and 5 years old (toddlers or preschoolers), completed an online survey. Dark Triad traits were assessed using the Japanese version of the Dark Triad Dirty Dozen, perceived social support with the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support, parental burnout with the Parental Burnout Assessment, and child-parent conflict and closeness using the Child-Parent Relationship Scale.
Results:
The results showed that higher levels of dark personality traits were associated with greater conflict in the child-parent relationship as well as higher levels of parental burnout. Interestingly, for parents high in Dark Triad traits, greater perceived social support was associated with higher levels of child-parent conflict.
Conclusions:
The findings highlight the complexity of social support in the context of dark personalities, as it may fail to mitigate the harmful effects of conflictual family relationships.
REFERENCES (53)
1.
Abar, C. C., Jackson, K. M., & Wood, M. (2014). Reciprocal relations between perceived parental knowledge and adolescent substance use and delinquency: The moderating role of parent-teen relationship quality. Developmental Psychology, 50, 2176–2187. https://doi.org/10.1037/a00374....
2.
Aldousari, S. S., & Ickes, W. (2021). How is Machiavellianism related to locus of control? A meta-analytic review. Personality and Individual Differences, 174, 110677. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid....
3.
Burghart, M., & Mier, D. (2022). No feelings for me, no feelings for you: a meta-analysis on alexithymia and empathy in psychopathy. Personality and Individual Differences, 194, 111658. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid....
4.
Cao, X., & Liu, X. (2023). Understanding the role of parent-child relationships in conscientiousness and neuroticism development among Chinese middle school students: a cross-lagged model. Behavioral Sciences, 13, 876. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs1310....
5.
Chan, S. T. (2009). Revisiting the father-son conflicts in Chinese families from a cultural lens: Implications for family-centered practice in Chinese societies. The Hong Kong Journal of Social Work, 43, 43–57. https://doi.org/10.1142/S02192....
6.
Cooklin, A. R., Giallo, R., & Rose, N. (2011). Parental fatigue and parenting practices during early childhood: an Australian community survey. Child: Care, Health and Development, 38, 654–664. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365....
7.
Driscoll, K., & Pianta, R. C. (2011). Mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of conflict and closeness in parent-child relationships during early childhood. Journal of Early Childhood and Infant Psychology, 7, 1–24.
8.
Edwards, J. R., & Lambert, L. S. (2007). Methods for integrating moderation and mediation: a general analytical framework using moderated path analysis. Psychological Methods, 12, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1037/1082-9....
9.
Ferencz, T., Láng, A., Kocsor, F., Kozma, L., Babós, A., & Gyuris, P. (2023). Sibling relationship quality and parental rearing style influence the development of dark triad traits. Current Psychology, 42, 24764–24781. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144....
10.
Furutani, K., Kawamoto, T., Alimardani, M., & Nakashima, K. (2020). Exhausted parents in Japan: Preliminary validation of the Japanese version of the Parental Burnout Assessment. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2020, 33–49. https://doi.org/10.1002/cad.20....
11.
Geher, G., Di Santo, J. M., Planke, J. A., Durso, G., Goldstein, A., Akmadi, F., Griffin, M., Primavera, N. J., Rausch, Z. M., Rodriguez, K., Thomson, G., & Weintraub, J. (2020). Dark parenting: Parents who score as high in the dark triad demonstrate sub-optimal parenting styles. The Journal of the Evolutionary Studies Consortium, 11, 116–143. https://doi.org/10.59077/JWFX6....
12.
Graziano, W. G., & Tobin, R. M. (2009). Agreeableness. In M. R. Leary & R. H. Hoyle (Eds.), Handbook of individual differences in social behavior (pp. 46–61). The Guilford Press.
13.
Grover, S., & Furnham, A. (2021). Does emotional intelligence and resilience moderate the relationship between the Dark Triad and personal and work burnout? Personality and Individual Differences, 169, 109979. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid....
14.
Hayes, A. F. (2017). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis: a regression-based approach. Guilford Publications.
15.
Iwasa, H., Gondo, Y., Masui, Y., Inagaki, H., Kawaai, C., Otsuka, R., & Suzuki, T. (2007). Reliability and validity of the Japanese version of the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support among middle-aged and elderly people living in a Japanese community. Journal of Health and Welfare Statistics, 54, 26–33.
16.
Jonason, P. K., & Fletcher, S. A. (2018). Agentic and communal behavioral biases in the Dark Triad traits. Personality and Individual Differences, 130, 76–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid....
17.
Jonason, P. K., Foster, J. D., Kavanagh, P. S., Gouveia, V. V., & Birkás, B. (2018). Basic values and the Dark Triad traits. Journal of Individual Differences, 39, 220–228. https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0....
18.
Jonason, P. K., Foster, J., Oshio, A., Sitnikova, M., Birkas, B., & Gouveia, V. (2017). Self-construals and the Dark Triad traits in six countries. Personality and Individual Differences, 113, 120–124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid....
19.
Jonason, P. K., Lyons, M., & Bethell, E. (2014). The making of Darth Vader: Parent-child care and the Dark Triad. Personality and Individual Differences, 67, 30–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid....
20.
Jonason, P. K., Strosser, G. L., Kroll, C. H., Duineveld, J. J., & Baruffi, S. A. (2015). Valuing myself over others: The Dark Triad traits and moral and social values. Personality and Individual Differences, 81, 102–106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid....
21.
Jones, D. N. (2020). Machiavellianism. In V. Zeigler-Hill & T. K. Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of personality and individual differences (pp. 2710–2718). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-....
22.
Jones, D. N., & Paulhus, D. L. (2010). Different provocations trigger aggression in narcissists and psychopaths. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1, 12–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/194855....
23.
Kibe, C. (2016). Father-child relationships and socio-emotional development of 3-year-old children: a cross-cultural comparison between Japan and the U.K. Journal of the Graduate School of Humanities and Sciences, 19, 155–164.
24.
Kim, J. H. (2019). Multicollinearity and misleading statistical results. Korean Journal of Anesthesiology, 72, 558–569. https://doi.org/10.4097/kja.19....
25.
Kusumoto, Y. (2019). Hahaoya no “oya sodachi” ga yōiku taido ni oyobosu eikyō [Effect of maternal mental growth on child-rearing attitudes]. Research on Early Childhood Care and Education in Japan, 57, 114–125. https://doi.org/10.20617/recce....
26.
Kwon, S., O’Neill, M. E., & Foster, C. C. (2022). The associations of child’s clinical conditions and behavioral problems with parenting stress among families of preschool-aged children: 2018-2019 national survey of child health. Children, 9, 241. https://doi.org/10.3390/childr....
27.
Lachowicz-Tabaczek, K., Andrzejewska, B. E., Juszkiewicz, A., & Babiak, J. (2025). Who tends to perceive other people as useful objects? The relationship between the general tendency to objectify other people and basic and dark personality traits. Current Issues in Personality Psychology, 13, 118–126. https://doi.org/10.5114/cipp/1....
28.
Láng, A., & Birkás, B. (2014). Machiavellianism and perceived family functioning in adolescence. Personality and Individual Differences, 63, 69–74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid....
29.
Le Vigouroux, S., & Scola, C. (2018). Differences in parental burnout: Influence of demographic factors and personality of parents and children. Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 887. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.....
30.
Le Vigouroux, S., Scola, C., Raes, M. E., Mikolajczak, M., & Roskam, I. (2017). The big five personality traits and parental burnout: Protective and risk factors. Personality and Individual Differences, 119, 216–219. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid....
31.
Lubit, R. (2002). The long-term organizational impact of destructively narcissistic managers. Academy of Management Perspectives, 16, 127–138. https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.20....
32.
Lyons, M., Evans, K., & Helle, S. (2019). Do “dark” personality features buffer against adversity? The associations between cumulative life stress, the Dark Triad, and mental distress. Sage Open, 9, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1177/215824....
33.
Mikolajczak, M., & Roskam, I. (2018). A theoretical and clinical framework for parental burnout: The balance between risks and resources (BR2). Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 886. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.....
34.
Mikolajczak, M., Gross, J. J., & Roskam, I. (2019). Parental burnout: What is it, and why does it matter? Clinical Psychological Science, 7, 1319–1329. https://doi.org/10.1177/216770....
35.
National Tax Agency (2022). Reiwa 4 nenbun minkan kyuyo jittai tokei chosa [2022 private sector salary statistics survey]. Retrieved from https://www.nta.go.jp/publicat....
36.
Oshio, A. (2009). Development and validation of the Dichotomous Thinking Inventory. Social Behavior and Personality, 37, 729–742. https://doi.org/10.2224/sbp.20....
37.
Oyarzún-Farías, M. L. A., Cova, F., & Bustos Navarrete, C. (2021). Parental stress and satisfaction in parents with pre-school and school age children. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 683117. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.....
38.
Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. M. (2002). The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36, 556–563. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0092-....
39.
Pedregon, C. A., Farley, R. L., Davis, A., Wood, J. M., & Clark, R. D. (2012). Social desirability, personality questionnaires, and the “better than average” effect. Personality and Individual Differences, 52, 213–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid....
40.
Rantanen, J., Tillemann, K., Metsäpelto, R. L., Kokko, K., & Pulkkinen, L. (2015). Longitudinal study on reciprocity between personality traits and parenting stress. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 39, 65–76. https://doi.org/10.1177/016502....
41.
Ren, X., Cai, Y., Wang, J., & Chen, O. (2024). A systematic review of parental burnout and related factors among parents. BMC Public Health, 24, 376. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889....
42.
Robinson, S., & Weiss, J. A. (2020). Examining the relationship between social support and stress for parents of individuals with autism. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 74, 101557. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd....
43.
Roskam, I., Aguiar, J., Akgun, E., Arikan, G., Artavia, M., Avalosse, H., Aunola, K., Bader, M., Bahati, C., Barham, E. J., Besson, E., Beyers, W., Boujut, E., Brianda, M. E., Brytek-Matera, A., Carbonneau, N., César, F., Chen, B. B., Dorard, G., Dos Santos Elias, L. C., … Mikolajczak, M. (2021). Parental burnout around the globe: a 42-country study. Affective Science, 2, 58–79. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42761....
44.
Roskam, I., Brianda, M. E., & Mikolajczak, M. (2018). A step forward in the conceptualization and measurement of parental burnout: The Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA). Frontiers in Psychology, 9, 758. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.....
45.
Schade, E. C., Voracek, M., & Tran, U. S. (2021). The nexus of the Dark Triad personality traits with cyberbullying, empathy, and emotional intelligence: a structural-equation modeling approach. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 659282. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.....
46.
Stoeber, J. (2014). How other-oriented perfectionism differs from self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 36, 329–338. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10862....
47.
Swit, C. S., & Breen, R. (2023). Parenting during a pandemic: Predictors of parental burnout. Journal of Family Issues, 44, 1817–1837. https://doi.org/10.1177/019251....
48.
Tajmirriyahi, M., Doerfler, S. M., Najafi, M., Hamidizadeh, K., & Ickes, W. (2021). Dark Triad traits, recalled and current quality of the parent-child relationship: a non-western replication and extension. Personality and Individual Differences, 180, 110949. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid....
49.
Tamura, A., Oshio, A., Tanaka, K., Masui, K., & Jonason, P. K. (2015). Development, reliability, and validity of the Japanese version of Dark Triad Dirty Dozen (DTDD-J). Japanese Journal of Personality, 24, 26–37. https://doi.org/10.2132/person....
50.
Taylor, S. E. (2011). Social support: a review. In H. S. Friedman (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of health psychology (pp. 189–214). Oxford University Press.
51.
Walker, S. A., & MacCann, C. (2024). Faking good and bad on self-reports versus informant-reports of Dark Triad personality. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 32, 329–342. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsa.1....
52.
Zee, K. S., & Bolger, N. (2019). Visible and invisible social support: How, why, and when. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 28, 314–320. https://doi.org/10.1177/096372....
53.
Zhuo, R., Shi, X., & Wu, Y. (2022). Association between parent-child relationship and second-time mother’s prenatal depressive symptoms: The mediation role of parenting burnout. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20, 491. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph....
Copyright: © Institute of Psychology, University of Gdansk This is an Open Access journal, all articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/), allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon the material, provided the original work is properly cited and states its license.
Share
RELATED ARTICLE
| eISSN: | 2353-561X |
| ISSN: | 2353-4192 |
We process personal data collected when visiting the website. The function of obtaining information about users and their behavior is carried out by voluntarily entered information in forms and saving cookies in end devices. Data, including cookies, are used to provide services, improve the user experience and to analyze the traffic in accordance with the Privacy policy. Data are also collected and processed by Google Analytics tool (more).
You can change cookies settings in your browser. Restricted use of cookies in the browser configuration may affect some functionalities of the website.
You can change cookies settings in your browser. Restricted use of cookies in the browser configuration may affect some functionalities of the website.
