Abstract
The first aim of this study was to explore differences between male violent offenders and male community adults in Dark Tetrad traits and psychological distress. The second aim was to investigate moderation effects of dark traits in the prediction of psychological distress based on the membership of violent offenders or community adults. The sample included 142 male violent offenders (M = 40.73, SD = 11.43) convicted of murder, severe murder, or rape, and 573 men from the community population in Serbia without a history of criminal convictions (M = 41.71, SD = 15.11). Serbian adaptations of the Short Dark Triad (SD3), Comprehensive Assessment of Sadistic Tendencies (CAST), and Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation - Outcome Measure (CORE-OM) were used. Results showed that violent offenders had higher scores on psychopathy and problems in social and general functioning, while community adults had higher scores on narcissism. Furthermore, moderation analyses showed that physical sadism was significantly correlated with risk behaviors in the community adults, but not in violent offenders.
Highlights
Dark TetradThe Dark Triad represents a constellation of three related socially aversive traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy (Paulhus & Williams, 2002)
Descriptives and differences between male violent offenders and male community adults Preliminary analysis showed that physical sadism, risk-to-self, and riskto-others had skewness and/or kurtosis over recommended for normal distribution (± 2, see George & Mallery, 2010), scores for these variables were normalized by rankit normalization
The results of differences between the subsamples showed that violent offenders had higher scores on psychopathy and poor functioning, while community adults had higher scores on narcissism (Table 1)
Summary
The Dark Triad represents a constellation of three related socially aversive traits: Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy (Paulhus & Williams, 2002) Seven years after this concept was introduced, sadism was included, forming the Dark Tetrad together with the previously mentioned traits (Chabrol et al, 2009). Based on Paulhuss (2014) review, the shared characteristic of Dark Teterad traits is callousness, and empirical studies showed that the central features of Dark Tetrad traits are lack of affective empathy (or callousness) and manipulativeness (e.g., Dinić, Wertag et al, 2020). Besides this common core, each dark trait has other unique characteristics or characteristics expressed in different intensities. Sadism is defined as the tendency to exhibit cruel and aggressive behavior towards others with the aim of achieving enjoyment or manifesting dominance (O'Meara et al, 2011)
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