Adaptation and Psychometric Properties of the Dark Tetrad Short Questionnaire

Abstract

The research focuses on the Russian-language adaption of the Short Dark Tetrad questionnaire (SD4), which allows for the evaluation of four personality traits: machiavellianism, subclinical narcissism, psychopathy, and sadism. The questionnaire is a diagnostic tool for the Dark Tetrad model of personality characteristics, which is a refinement of the Dark Triad model. The study sample included 765 people between the ages of 18 and 25 (M = 19.97; SD = 1.87; 71.8% female), with 366 (47.84 %) taking part in the retest series. In addition to the SD4 questionnaire, respondents were given two questionnaires of the Dark Triad model, the Buss-Perry Aggression questionnaire and the Ten Item Personality Measure. The four-factor structure of the questionnaire was found to have appropriateness indices equivalent to those of the original SD4 questionnaire and other SD4 adaptations based on confirmatory analysis. The questionnaire's scales demonstrate adequate reliability, good convergent validity (when compared to questionnaires diagnosing machiavellian, narcissistic, and psychopathic characteristics), and divergent validity. The sadism scale revealed associations with aggressive characteristics (physical aggression, hostility, anger). The SD4 questionnaire scales showed that the responses were stable over time. Positive correlations between narcissism and extraversion were discovered, as were negative associations between Machiavellianism and agreeableness, openness to experience, and emotional stability, and psychopathy and sadism with agreeableness and conscientiousness. The results of psychometric testing of the Russian-language Short Questionnaire Dark Tetrad indicates its reliability and validity, as well as the possibilities of using it as a diagnostic tool.