The Longitudinal Relationship Between Dark Triad Traits and Moral Disengagement in Adolescents: A Cross-Lagged Panel Network Analysis

Moral disengagement (MD) typically peaks during adolescence. While the Dark Triad (DT) traits—Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism—are broadly linked to MD, the specific prospective pathways through which individual DT components predict distinct MD strategies remain unclear, particularly with respect to gender-specific variations in these influences among adolescents. To systematically investigate these temporal associations, this study employed Cross-Lagged Panel Network (CLPN) modeling on a sample of 1410 Chinese adolescents (Mage = 16.95, SD = 0.75) surveyed across three waves at three-month intervals. Results revealed a hierarchical pattern of DT influence: Machiavellianism exerted the strongest predictive effect on the MD system, followed by psychopathy, while narcissism showed negligible or even negative effects. Among MD strategies, euphemistic labelling, advantageous comparison and displacement of responsibility were the most responsive to DT traits. Bridge centrality analysis confirmed Machiavellianism as the primary cross-domain connector linking DT traits to MD. Weak but significant reciprocal effects were observed: MD slightly fed back onto later Machiavellianism and psychopathy, supporting a partially bidirectional process. Gender-separated networks revealed divergent pathways: Machiavellianism served as the key DT-MD bridge for males, whereas psychopathy fulfilled this role for females. These findings refine the understanding of the “dark side” of moral development by highlighting mechanism-specific MD vulnerabilities and demonstrating that the primary socio-cognitive pathway to MD is gender-contingent, thereby advancing developmental models of MD.