The mediating role of social reward in the relationship between the dark triad and the honesty-humility personality traits and managing the emotions of others among university students

The aim of this study was to examine the mediating role of social reward (negative social potency, sexual relationships, admiration and prosocial interactions) in the relationships between the Dark Triad (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) and the HEXACO dimension of honesty-humility personality traits, and managing the emotion of others (prosocial emotion management and nonprosocial emotion management) among university students. The study group consisted of 1012 (472 female and 540 male) undergraduate students enrolled at Mersin University in 2021-2022 academic year. In addition to "Personal Data Form", "HEXACO Personality Inventory Revised-60", "The Short Dark Triad Scale", "The Managing the Emotions of Others Scale" and "The Social Reward Questionnaire" were used in the study. "The Managing the Emotions of Others Scale" and "The Social Reward Questionnaire" were also adapted into Turkish as part of this study. Bootstrapping based on multiple mediation test was used to analyze the data and all tests were analyzed at a .05 level of significance. The findings revealed that negative social potency and sexual relationships had mediator roles in the relationships between the Dark Triad personality traits (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) and nonprosocial emotion management among university students. Furthermore, admiration and prosocial interactions had mediator roles in the relationship between the honesty-humility personality trait and prosocial emotion management among university students. The findings were discussed in the light of theoretical framework and the results of previous research, and also suggestions were provided for implications and future research.