Differentiating the traits of the Dark Tetrad in their linkages with humor styles, dispositions toward ridicule and laughter, and comic styles

Abstract

Recent studies of the traits of the Dark Tetrad (i.e., narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and everyday sadism) have emphasized the need to elucidate their unique associations with other external criteria as a way of reinforcing their independent empirical entity. Using two independent samples (N = 406), we sought to empirically differentiate the traits of the Dark Tetrad in their relationships to three humor-related personality systems: the Humor Styles Model, the Disposition toward Ridicule and Laughter, and the Comic Style Markers. Hierarchical regression and relative weight analyses revealed that narcissism was the strongest positive predictor of “lighter” forms of humor such as adaptive humor styles, dispositional joy in being laughed at (gelotophilia), and a funny-witty comic style. Psychopathy outperformed other dark personalities in predicting amplified levels of aggressive humor, dispositional joy in laughing at others (katagelasticism), and sarcasm. Machiavellianism primarily predicted an increased ironic-satiric comic style and an elevated dispositional fear of being laughed at (gelotophobia). Finally, while everyday sadism was positively related to most of the “darker” humor-related dimensions such as aggressive humor and sarcasm, this construct uniquely predicted (but reflecting a small effect size) greater levels of katagelasticism after controlling for its shared variance with the remaining traits of the Dark Tetrad.