Light triad

In psychology the light triad scale quantifies empathy, compassion and altruism. The idea was first suggested by Laura Johnson in her 2018 masters thesis.^[1] The light triad comprises Faith In Humanity, Humanism and Kantianism,^[2] which correspond to the following statements:

• I think people are mostly good.
• I enjoy listening to people from all walks of life (Humans across all backgrounds are deserving of respect and appreciation).
• When I talk to people, I am rarely thinking about what I want from them (Others should be treated as ends in and of themselves, and not as pawns in one’s own game).

Illustration of the light triad

The light triad was inspired by the more established dark triad which assesses negative personality and thoughts. It was expected that the light triad would be highly anticorrelated with the dark triad. That is, a high score on the light triad would correspond to a low score on the dark triad and vice versa. However researchers found that the two were only moderately anticorrelated at −0.48, showing that they are not merely opposites.^[3]