The next distinction without a difference: Do psychopathy and sadism scales assess the same construct?

Abstract

There is vigorous debate about the distinctiveness of the components that make up the Dark Triad. With its expansion toward the Dark Tetrad, the inclusion of everyday sadism sparked further disagreement on whether this fourth component allows explaining additional variance in relevant criteria not accounted for by psychopathy, narcissism, or Machiavellianism. Given that psychopathy and sadism are highly similar in their conceptualizations, we compared prominent measures for both constructs (Psychopathy and Sadism subscales of the Short Dark Tetrad; short form of the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale-III; P7; Varieties of Sadistic Tendencies) in terms of structural properties (i.e., different confirmatory factor analyses) and their nomological networks (i.e., correlation difference tests concerning 51 criteria; overall agreement of nomological networks). In a sample of 594 participants (77 % women, Mage = 28.4, SDage = 9.0), we found that latent single-factor and two-factor solutions of psychopathy and sadism items are almost equivalent, that the nomological networks of scales purportedly measuring either psychopathy or sadism are virtually identical, and that psychopathy scales were at least equivalent predictors of core characteristics of sadism. Thus, our results militate against the measurement-related distinctiveness of sadism and psychopathy.