Do Narcissists And Psychopaths Experience Less Stress?

Not everyone reacts the same way when faced with a stressful situation. While some feel their heart race and anxiety rise rapidly, others remain surprisingly calm. A new study shows that certain personality traits, especially narcissism and psychopathy, may be linked to a less intense physical response to stress, although this doesn't necessarily mean an advantage for health or relationships.

Pressure situations are part of everyone's life. A job interview, an important exam, a public presentation, or a difficult discussion often triggers almost automatic reactions in the body. The heart races, blood pressure increases, hands may sweat, and the feeling of anxiety intensifies.

These changes are controlled by the nervous system and are part of the well-known "fight or flight" mechanism, which prepares the body to face challenges. However, not everyone responds in the same way. Some seem to remain calm even in extremely stressful situations. A new study investigated whether part of this difference may be related to certain personality traits known as the Dark Triad.

The Dark Triad is a concept used in psychology to describe three sets of personality traits that can appear in varying degrees in the population and do not necessarily represent mental disorders.

The first is narcissism, characterized by great self-confidence, a strong need for recognition, and a sense of superiority. The second is psychopathy, associated with impulsivity, lower emotional sensitivity, and difficulty feeling empathy. The third is Machiavellianism, marked by a tendency to manipulate people and situations to achieve personal goals.

It is important to note that possessing some of these traits does not mean that a person is a criminal or has a psychiatric diagnosis. Most of the time, these characteristics appear in varying degrees and are part of the natural variations of human personality.

To discover how these traits influence stress responses, researchers recruited 139 adult volunteers, slightly more than half of whom were women. First, all participants answered psychological questionnaires designed to measure the levels of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism present in their personalities. Then, the participants were subjected to a carefully planned situation to induce stress.

They had to perform quick mental calculations while being observed and evaluated by researchers, a type of test widely used in scientific studies because it usually generates psychological pressure similar to that experienced in real-life situations, such as public speaking or being evaluated during a job interview. Before and after the task, the volunteers answered questions about how much stress and anxiety they expected to feel and how they actually felt during the experiment.

While the participants performed the activity, the scientists continuously monitored their bodies. Heart rate and various blood pressure parameters were measured, comparing the values ​​recorded at rest with those obtained during the moment of highest pressure. This comparison allowed them to calculate how much each person's body reacted to the challenge.

The results showed interesting differences. People with higher levels of narcissism reported feeling less anxiety during the test and showed smaller increases in blood pressure compared to others. Individuals with higher levels of psychopathic traits showed less acceleration of heart rate and also reported feeling less stressed.

In other words, both the body and subjective perception seemed to react less intensely to the same situation. On the other hand, Machiavellianism showed practically no relationship with any of the measures evaluated.

The researchers also performed more rigorous statistical analyses to separate the specific effects of each personality trait, since they often occur together in many people. Even after these adjustments, some associations remained, especially those involving psychopathy and heart rate response.

Although these results attract attention, the authors make an important warning about their interpretation. A lesser physical response to stress does not necessarily mean that these personality traits are desirable or bring health benefits.

Narcissism and psychopathy continue to be associated, in many studies, with difficulties in relationships, impulsivity, less empathy and other behaviors that can cause significant social harm. Furthermore, the research only shows an association and does not prove that these traits are the direct cause of the differences observed in the organism.

Still, the work helps to better understand how personality influences not only our thoughts and behaviors, but also the functioning of the body in challenging situations. This knowledge could contribute to future research on stress resilience, cardiovascular health and even how different people cope with high-pressure environments, such as risky professions or emergency situations.

READ MORE:

Examining the association between the dark triad personality traits and cardiovascular reactivity to acute psychological stress

Adam O’Riordan, Tyler L. Minnigh, and Aisling M. Costello

International Journal of Psychophysiology, August 2026 113420 Volume 226

10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2026.113420

Abstract: 

The current study aimed to examine the influence of Dark Triad traits on psychological and cardiovascular reactivity to acute psychological stress. Participants (N = 139, 52.5% women) completed a repeated measures cardiovascular reactivity protocol consisting of a resting baseline phase and a psychological stressor phase comprised of a mental arithmetic task with social evaluation. Self-reported stress and anxiety expectations were assessed prior to the stressor, while subjective stress and anxiety experiences were assessed following the task. Systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), mean arterial pressure (MAP), and heart rate (HR) were measured throughout the protocol for calculation of cardiovascular reactivity (delta method). Narcissism was significantly associated with lower self-reported anxiety as well as reduced SBP and MAP reactivity to stress. Psychopathy was associated with lower self-reported stress and attenuated HR responses. Machiavellianism was not associated with either psychological or cardiovascular stress responses. In follow-up sensitivity analyses, all Dark Triad traits were modeled simultaneously. The associations between narcissism and SBP reactivity, and between psychopathy and self-reported stress became non-significant, indicating that these associations were not robust in more stringent analyses. However, all other effects remained significant in follow-up analyses. These findings indicate that narcissism and psychopathy are associated with individual differences in psychophysiological stress reactivity, and demonstrate some independent predictive utility beyond shared variance within the Dark Triad.