The Influence of Family Risk Communities on Dark Triad Traits in Migrant and Non-Migrant Children: A Cross-Lagged Panel Network Analysis

Existing studies have revealed the relationship between the dark triad traits and maladaptive behaviors in adolescents, but the understanding of the influencing mechanism of family risks remains limited, and there is also less exploration of the dark triad traits of the development trajectories between immigrant children and non-immigrant children. This study employed cross-lagged network analysis examining 979 children (365 migrants) across three time points. The results showed: (1) Family risk factors formed two distinct communities, relational dynamics and traumatic stressors, and emotional neglect and economic pressure served as key transmission nodes between them. (2) Emotional neglect and economic pressure have the strongest links with Machiavellianism and Psychopathy development respectively, suggesting that children who reported high levels of emotional neglect and economic pressure are more likely to concurrently develop these dark personality traits and thus should be a primary focus of intervention. (3) Migrant children exhibited lower network density (0.45 vs 0.52) with emotional neglect emerging as the central predictor of maladaptive personality traits, whereas non-migrant children demonstrated more diffuse and interconnected risk mechanisms across multiple family factors. This emphasizes the importance of targeting emotional neglect in migrant families as a pivotal intervention point to prevent maladaptive personality development.