The Dark Five: A reconsideration of the Short Dark Tetrad (SD4)

Abstract

The measurement of ‘dark’ personality traits has been shown to be susceptible to error. In particular, the Dark Tetrad is theorized to fit poorly to the 4-factor structure within the SD4 (Paulhus et al., 2021). The present study examined the structural validity of the SD4 by using a dataset of internet users (n = 604). A robust approach to confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the 4-factor model proposed by Paulhus et al. (2021) did not appropriately reflect the data. Alternatively, an exploratory 5-factor model (The Dark Five; including coalition-building, grandiose exhibitionism, psychopathy, violent voyeurism, and indirect sadism) resulted in better statistical fit than the 4-factor model. Moreover, the Dark Five allowed the successful discrimination of psychopathy and sadism and explained more variance in attachment orientation than had the 4-factor model. Future research using the SD4 to measure ‘dark’ personalities or to explore differences between psychopathy and sadism may therefore benefit by testing the 5-factor model or opting for a different measure of the Dark Tetrad.