The Dark Tetrad empowered: the Dark Tetrad and power motivations within the normal personality space

WCU Author/Contributor (non-WCU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
James H. R. Houston (Creator)
Institution
Western Carolina University (WCU )
Web Site: http://library.wcu.edu/
Advisor
David McCord

Abstract: Within personality psychology there has been a surge in research regarding the Dark Tetrad of personality (Buckels, Jones, & Paulhus, 2014). This research has focused on the way these constructs are related to diverse variables of interest. The present research builds on the prior studies by expanding the exploration into the common features that comprise the four constructs. The hypotheses were that each construct would correlate with facets of Honesty/Humility, Emotionality, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness, along with four aspects of power motivations, and that narcissism would be connected to Extraversion. Also, it was hypothesized that facets of these domains, as well as power motivations. would be predictive of levels of the dark constructs. These hypotheses were tested against a sample of 300 subjects from Western Carolina University. Results showed predictive significance on the hypothesized models explaining variance within each of the four constructs of Sadism (R2 = 0.27), Machiavellianism (R2 = 0.31), Psychopathy (R2 = 0.40), and Narcissism (R2 = 0.66).

Additional Information

Publication
Thesis
Language: English
Date: 2019
Keywords
Dark Tetrad, Dark Triad, HEXACO, Personality, Power Motivations
Subjects
Personality assessment
Interpersonal relations
Control (Psychology)
Motivation (Psychology)
Personality and motivation

Email this document to