The dark tetrad and its relations with maladaptive personality traits and sexual tactics

Abstract

The dark triad created by Paulhus and Williams (2002) is relatively new to research and requires a more thorough investigation. One area of expansion is considering the addition of everyday sadism to the dark triad thus making the dark tetrad. Investigating the relationship between the dark tetrad and the Personality Inventory for the DSM-5 (PID-5) could greatly add to the existing understanding as well. Lastly, there is a need for further clarification of the relationship between the dark tetrad and sexual tactics. The current study investigated each of these areas. From this examination, it was found that sadism could be validly added to the dark triad. Furthermore, the PID-5 antagonism domain and facets correlated moderately to strongly with the dark tetrad traits. Lastly, most of the dark tetrad traits were found to have a statistically significant relationship with sexual coercion and psychopathy alone had a significant relationship with sexual coaxing. Overall, the current study adds promising information to existing research by defining the dark tetrad using maladaptive traits and examining their relations with sexually deviant behaviors