Original Article
Pursuing the Dark Triad Psychometric properties of the Spanish Version of the Dirty Dozen Lorena Maneiro,1 Laura López-Romero,1,2 José Antonio Gómez-Fraguela,1 Olalla Cutrín,1 and Estrella Romero1 1
Department of Clinical and Psychobiological Psychology, Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, Spain
2
Center for Criminological and PsychoSocial research (CAPS), School of Law, Psychology and Social Work, Örebro Universitet, Sweden
Abstract: The Dirty Dozen scale is a short measure developed to assess the Dark Triad traits, namely Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism, which has previously shown good psychometric properties. The aim of this study was to validate a Spanish version of the Dirty Dozen through the assessment of its psychometric properties in a sample constituted by 326 young adults aged 18–34 (M = 20.55; SD = 1.89) from Spain. The Spanish version of the Dirty Dozen showed good internal consistency and acceptable test-retest stability. Likewise, the analysis of the factorial structure supported the three-factor solution and showed a best fit for the bifactorial model. The latent factor of the general Dark Triad was associated with low levels of Honesty/Humility, psychopathic traits, impulsivity, and sensation seeking; whereas a differential pattern of associations between the three specific Dark Triad latent factors and the nomological network was found. Furthermore, the Dark Triad traits showed differential relations with reactive and proactive aggression, verifying the external validity of the Spanish version of the Dirty Dozen. Results support the distinctiveness of the Dark Triad traits and justify the Dirty Dozen as an efficient measure for dark personalities in Spanish-speaking contexts. Keywords: Dirty Dozen, Dark Triad, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism
The Dark Triad of personality has been proposed as a constellation of three socially aversive personality constructs in the subclinical range, namely Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism (Paulhus & Williams, 2002). Machiavellianism is characterized by a cynical disregard for morality and a focus on self-interest and personal gain, and involves strategic manipulation, callous affect, and alliance building (Christie & Geis, 1970). Psychopathy describes a complex of callousness and shallow affect, along with interpersonal manipulation and lack of self-control (Hare & Neumann, 2008). Lastly, narcissism concerns grandiose sense of self, manipulation, exploitative entitlement, and callousness (Campbell & Miller, 2011). Previous research on Dark Triad has evidenced meaningful associations with psychosocial correlates such as risky behaviors (Crysel, Crosier, & Webster, 2013), criminal offending (Flexon, Meldrum, Young, & Lehmann, 2016), aggression (Vize, Lynam, Collison, & Miller, 2018), substance use (Flexon et al., 2016), short-term mating preferences (Jonason, Li, Webster, & Schmitt, 2009), and fast-life strategies (Jonason, Koenig, & Tost, 2010). The overlap among the Dark Triad traits has suggested the existence of a common antagonistic core of disagreeableness (Paulhus & Williams, 2002), lack of Honesty/Humility (Lee & Ashton, 2014), callousness and manipulation Journal of Individual Differences (2019), 40(1), 36–44 https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000274
(Jones & Figueredo, 2013), and an exploitative social style (Jonason et al., 2009), nevertheless the unique pattern of correlations with different personality traits and behavioral outcomes supports the distinctiveness of the Dark Triad traits (Furham, Richards, & Paulhus, 2013; Jones & Paulhus, 2011a). Specifically, empirical evidence suggests that Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism may be best described by a single latent construct of callousness and antagonistic tendencies in conjunction with three specific factors, instead of independent, yet overlapping, traits (Bertl, Pietschnig, Tran, Stieger, & Voracek, 2017; McLarnon & Tarraf, 2017). In order to evaluate the Dark Triad traits, Jonason and Webster (2010) developed the Dark Triad Dirty Dozen, a concise measure which overcomes the limitations of the use of single long measures regarding time consumption, while incorporating flexibility in the assessment of the Dark Triad as either a single, or a three-dimensional construct. Despite some criticisms mainly derived from the high overlap between Machiavellianism and psychopathy, along with the reduction in the content in some of the subscales (Miller et al., 2012; Muris, Merckelbach, Otgaar, & Meijer, 2017), the Dirty Dozen scale has shown good and stable psychometric properties (e.g., Jonason & Luévano, 2013; Jonason & Webster, 2010; Webster & Jonason, 2013) and its utility Ó 2018 Hogrefe Publishing
