If genetic engineering leads to increasingly intelligent individuals being born in the future, it could be particularly important to select against dark tetrad traits in those individuals, as they may be unusually capable of causing large-scale harm. It may be valuable to better understand the genetic correlates of dark tetrad traits in preparation for this possibility. However, it is also important to seriously consider the bioethical questions raised by this kind of research – see the section on philosophy below.

Further research on how leaders high in dark tetrad traits gained power in the past would be valuable to better understand which traits and external factors are most predictive and how they can be combated.

If genetic enhancement results in the birth of increasingly intelligent and capable humans in the future, it may be particularly important to select against the genetic correlates of dark tetrad traits. At the same time, numerous atrocities have been committed in the name of creating ‘better’ humans. Promoting personality testing of individuals who want to be in powerful roles also raises ethical issues related to discrimination. Therefore more research is needed into the ethical implications and risks of these interventions.

• Research on dark tetrad traits often focuses on individuals who are highly aggressive and impulsive, however individuals who are better at strategically acquiring power may be capable of a much larger negative impact. Identifying the most relevant constellations of traits from this perspective and developing ways to measure them could be valuable.
• Most measures of dark tetrad traits take the form of either interviews or self-reports. Exploring the possibility of physiological or neurobiological measures based on methods like EEG or fMRI might therefore be useful, as these would be less vulnerable to manipulation.

   

The research agenda ‘Psychology for Effectively Improving the Future‘ suggests several research questions related to this research direction, including:

• How can we prevent malevolent leaders from manipulating minds (e.g., via misinformation, conspiracy beliefs, alarmist beliefs, promoting radical means-to-ends thinking)?
• What leads individuals to support such malevolent leaders, and how can we prevent this?

Research could also explore how to select leaders who are particularly likely to make good decisions by exploring questions such as:

• Could nominators who report on other people’s moral character, attitudes and tendencies help to identify people interested in effectively improving the future?
• Can we develop assessment tools (e.g. standardized measures) to identify such people, e.g., by measuring the psychologically predictive factors?
• How can we measure rational thinking attitudes (or epistemic virtues), such as truth-seeking, intellectual honesty, intellectual modesty, nuanced reasoning, actively open-minded thinking, ‘Scout mindset’ (Galef, 2021)? How can such measures be improved to be more accurate and precise? For example, can behavioral measures be developed? Can measures be developed that are accurate even in competitive contexts (e.g., when respondents are incentivized to perform well)?