Kostas Papageorgiou

I am a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the School of Psychology at Queen’s University Belfast. I am an Associate Editor and Associate Editor of Special Issues in the Elsevier journal of Personality and Individual Difference and a member of various national and international societies including the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences and Advocate of the European Association for Personality Psychology (EAPP) for the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Previously, I have worked as an Assistant Professor and an Associate Professor at London Metropolitan University, London, UK and Tomsk State University, Russia, respectively. I have a PhD (fully funded by the EU Marie Curie Early Career Researcher Programme) in Psychology (2015) specialising in Developmental Neuroscience and Molecular Genetics from the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck University London; and an MSc degree in Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience (2011) from Goldsmiths University of London. I completed my Undergraduate degree in Psychology (2010) at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens, Greece.

My current research interests include the study of the Dark Tetrad (Psychopathy, Narcissism, Machiavellianism and Sadism), exploring its structure, developmental factors that contribute to variation in dark traits and their outcomes in the areas of resilience, mental health, and performance across various contexts. My work has focused on narcissism, as a first step, in order to highlight some positive sides of this seemingly dark trait, such as showing resilience. The objective of my research programme is not to rehabilitate dark personalities, but rather to contextualize them in a complex web of societal costs and benefits. In so doing, I plan, through collaborative work, to be able to look into ways in which society can harness the energy of dark personalities while also curtailing their potential for harm.

I publish my research in top peer-reviewed journals, I have authored/co-authored several chapters in books of large international publishers (e.g., SAGE, Wiley, Rutledge) and I am the Editor of the in-preparation Research Handbook on the Dark Triad, Edward Elgar Ltd. I present findings of my work in international conferences and in July 2023, I co-Chaired the Conference of the International Society for the Study of Individual Differences at Queen’s University Belfast. In parallel to presenting my work to academic audiences, I disseminate my findings to the wider public through my collaboration with Seed Talks; and various public engagement activities with my work to frequently feature in articles/live interviews in the World’s largest international broadcasters such as the BBC World Service, CNN, Times and Forbes.