Measures of Dark Personalities

The Dark Triad of Personality: A 10 Year Review

“…To date, most Dark Triad research has used standard personality questionnaires whose validity has been well documented in the earlier personality literature. Newer, briefer measures are now available, although, to date, they have received less validation (Paulhus & Jones, forthcoming).…”

“…Jonason and colleagues have carried out a series of studies to support its validity (e.g., Jonason & Kavanagh, 2010). Although some researchers have found it to be useful (e.g., Rauthmann, 2012), others have been critical (e.g., Lee et al., forthcoming; Miller & Lynam, 2012; Paulhus & Jones, forthcoming; Rauthmann, forthcoming).…”

“…Although as malevolent as psychopaths, Machiavellians are more cautious and deliberate in their behavior: Hence, they do not act on temptation like psychopaths (Williams et al., 2010). When ego‐depleted, however, Machiavellians act out like psychopaths (Paulhus & Jones, forthcoming).…”

Internet trolling and everyday sadism: Parallel effects on pain perception and moral judgment

“…Empirically, however, there is evidence that psychopathy also predicts online trolling. This state of affairs is partly due to empirical overlap between sadism and psychopathy, as assessed by the available measures (e.g., see Međedović & Petrović, 2015;Paulhus & Jones, 2015;Plouffe, Saklofske, & Smith, 2017). It is critical to theoretically and empirically distinguish these two constructs in future research.…”

Dispositional malevolence and impression formation: Dark Tetrad associations with accuracy and positivity in first impressions

“…Psychological considerations of sadism emphasize both (a) pleasure derived from the suffering of others and (b) avoidance of guilt (e.g., Baumeister & Campbell, ). Broadly defined, individual differences in everyday sadism (Buckels, Jones, & Paulhus, ; Paulhus & Dutton, ) reflect tendencies to experience pleasure from the suffering of others that can be perpetrated directly (direct sadism) or observed from an outsider's perspective (vicarious sadism; Paulhus & Jones, ) and may involve physical, psychological, emotional, or even fantasized forms of harm. There are moderately sized positive associations between self‐report measures of sadism and the Dark Triad (Book et al, ; Buckels et al, ; Buckels, Trapnell, & Paulhus, ; Chabrol, Leeuwen, Rodgers, & Séjourné, ; March, Grieve, Marrington, & Jonason, ) that are similar in magnitude to the intercorrelations among those three traits (Paulhus & Williams, ).…”