Screening for dark personalities in Portugal: Intra- and interpersonal correlates, reliability and invariance of the Short Dark Tetrad Portuguese version

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Dark Tetrad refers to a cluster of four socially aversive and undesirable personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism. The main aim of the present study was to validate the recently developed Short Dark Tetrad (SD4) scale among a sample of young adults (N = 429, M = 22.11 years, SD = 3.35, range = 18–42) from Portugal, composed of men (n = 192, M = 22.14 years, SD = 3.34, range = 18–35) and women (n = 237, M = 22.08 years, SD = 3.35, range = 18–42). Results revealed that the expected four-factor latent structure of the SD4 obtained an adequate fit. The four factors mostly presented positive moderate significant intercorrelations, and adequate to good reliability. The four subscales showed distinctive correlates with other measures (e.g., low self-control, suppression of aggression, anxiety) and variables (e.g., delinquency acts, substance abuse). Strong cross-gender measurement invariance was demonstrated, with men scoring significantly higher than women on the Narcissism, Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, and Sadism subscales. The current findings support the use of the SD4 in Portuguese.