Scott Barry

“Any pleasure that does no harm to other people is to be valued.”– Russell (1930) “What we value so much, the altruistic ‘good’ side of human nature, can also have a dark side. Altruism can be the back door to hell.” – Oakley et al. (2012) Introduction We tend to think of altruism as unselfish and beneficial, with minimal tradeoffs, and selfishness as generally bad and glutinous, negatively impacting on others. Reality points to a much more complex story.

Introduction “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.” – Anne (Frank, 1995) (1947/, p. 332). “What’s one less person on the face of the earth, anyway?” – Ted Bundy (as quoted in Leyton, 2003). We all have, within each of us, both a light and a dark side. We all vary, however, in the extent to which we consistently exhibit light vs. dark patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviors in our daily lives.

Introduction Narcissism is a personality trait with two faces: narcissistic grandiosity and vulnerability (Wink, 1991; Dickinson and Pincus, 2003; Pincus and Lukowitsky, 2010; Miller et al., 2011, 2017; Krizan and Herlache, 2018; Kaufman et al., in press).