Meaningless and weak: Debunking the ‘Bitcoiners are psychopaths’ study

cointelegraph.com:

A study claiming that psychopaths and others with ‘Dark Tetrad’ personality traits are drawn to crypto has been criticized as "meaningless" for showing very weak correlativity by a psychology expert from The University of Otago.

Researchers with backgrounds predominately in marketing and advertising from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) surveyed 566 people on their attitudes toward crypto and correlated the results with four specific personality traits: narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and sadism.

The findings were first shared by The U.S. Sun, and were widely syndicated by the mainstream media, with the New York Post headline screaming “Bitcoin fans are psychopaths who don't care about anyone,” and Salon asserting that “Impulsive psychopaths like crypto”.

Bitcoin fans are psychopaths who don't care about anyone, study shows https://t.co/9WZQkzoIPX pic.twitter.com/YTGcULRCef

But speaking to Cointelegraph, Professor Martin Sellbom from The University of Otago’s Psychology Department — an international expert on personality disorders and personality assessment — criticized the results of the study as essentially meaningless.

The widely used Short Dark Triad (SD-3) personality test which rates the traits of psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism out of a maximum score of 5 was used to assess participants’ personalities.

The results of the study show that participant's scores for psychopathy and narcissism were below the average levels as determined by psychometric assessment group OpenPsychometrics. The participants scored 2% below the average for psychopathy and 16.7% below average for narcissism, however the scores for Machievellism were 3.6% higher.

But Professor Sellbom said that in any case this