Sociopaths = night owls?

According to the University of Western Sydney "a preference for staying up late or into the early hours has a direct link to anti-social behaviour and so-called Dark Triad traits," as reported by the Daily Mail. The dark triad, of course, refers to narcissists, sociopaths, and machiavellians.

People were then rated based on a narcissism scale and were asked how strongly they agreed with statements including 'I have a natural talent for influencing people.'

They were additionally asked how they felt about statements made on the psychopathy scale, for example, 'I think I could beat a lie detector', and a Machiavellian scale, such as 'It is hard to get ahead without cutting corners here and there'.

Across the 263 students, the darker a participant's personality score, the more they tended to be an 'owl' and said they functioned more effectively in the evening hours. 

This was also the case when the three traits were analysed separately; each trait was stronger in people who considered themselves to be night owls.

Why might that be? Like almost all scientific findings about psychopaths, the theories explaining the differences seem to be as unbiased as a old-fashioned phrenologist unquestioningly explaining why certain races are naturally superior to others in order to justify the status quo:

Both nocturnality and Dark Triad traits are hereditary, and adaptive. Now that a link between the two has been established, researchers are speculating as to how it came about – likely, they say, people with Dark Triad tendencies use the cover of night to better engage a “cheater strategy.”

While the vigilant eyelids of morning people start drooping, the night owls are just getting revved up – using their optimal cognitive function for anti-social behaviour, “increased mating success in the short-term context,” mate-poaching, risk-seeking, and impulsivity (and, likely plot-hatching: there has to be a way to wipe the sunny smile off that breakfast server’s face).

It's a little like the people who try to straight-facedly give a scientific explanation for why they think that dolphins are nicer than sharks.