Insider Threat: How Social Bonds May Mitigate Dark Triad Personality Traits
Loading...
Issue Date
2025
Editor
Authors
Danielsen, Ronald
License
Subject
Faculty of management
Abstract
Our world, and much of what we do is digitally driven. Every day, people conduct their professional and personal business online. In the background of all this, the information transits and is controlled through various electronic signals, and cables and resides on or moves through computer servers. The impact that a single person could have, through access, controlling, re-directing, or manipulating this information and data is extraordinary. Survey responses from N=231 people were collected over a relatively short period of time between 21 July, 2023 and 19 September, 2023, with respondents slowing significantly through September. The focus of this research is to argue that while individuals exhibiting the dark triad traits of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy pose a significant insider threat risk, this can be effectively mitigated through the presence of strong social bonds such as attachment, commitment, involvement. This research explores, through the application of a number of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) experiments, the relationship between social bonds and the dark triad as predictors of insider threat risk. Data was collected through a mix of vignette use to assess insider threat risk combined with a survey that assessed the Short Dark Triad 3, along with an assessment of social bonds. Through using a number of ML and AI experiments such as logistic regression, gradient descent, random forest, decision tree, and support vector machines, it was demonstrated that these models are highly reliable in being able to assess the relationship. The findings did demonstrate that those with dark triad traits, but with a high degree of social bonds, were less likely to present as an insider threat risk. Conversely, those with dark triad traits but weak bonds did present an elevated risk toward committing an insider threat act. It must be noted that the small sample size may be a limiting factor given the models used and future research should be conducted with larger datasets to further assess and evaluate these findings. In support of this portfolio, the findings informed three research outputs. Specifically, (a) a journal manuscript that argues a connection between the dark triad and income, (b) a journal manuscript that argues how social bonds mitigate insider threat risk posed by the dark triad, and (c) an online journal article that looks at how the dark triad is linked to some leaders. Collectively, this research is significant in that it demonstrates quantitative research that shows that we can effectively detect insider threat risk through assessing the presence of dark triad traits measured against social bonds.
Description
2025