Dark Triad and Humor Styles: A Study on White Collar Workers from Türkiye

Humor plays a crucial role in psychological functioning, influencing goal achievement, emotional regulation, and interpersonal interactions. This study explores the effects of dark triad on humor styles and to inquire about the inconsistent relations previously reported between narcissism and self-enhancing humor within a Turkish sample. Utilizing the Humor Styles Questionnaire and the Dirty Dozen Dark Triad inventory, data were collected from 468 white-collar employees working in various companies through online questionnaire. The results indicated that Narcissism positively affects all humor styles, while Psychopathy significantly associated with aggressive, self-enhancing and self-defeating humor. In contrast, Machiavellianism shows a negative effect with self-defeating humor. These findings underscore the complex interplay between personality traits and humor, suggesting that while Narcissism may enhance both positive and negative humor styles, Psychopathy predominantly influences negative styles, and Machiavellianism appears less involved. The study discusses the implications of these results and provides suggestions for future research.