Acquiescence bias and the factor structure of the Dirty Dozen and the Short Dark Triad

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15448/1980-8623.2020.2.33945

Keywords:

psychological assessment, psychometrics, dark triad

Abstract

The Dark Triad – Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy – has been traditionally assessed via self-report inventories. Self-report instruments might be susceptible to acquiescent responding or the tendency to manifest agreement with items even when they are semantically opposed. We investigated the dimensionality of two popular self-report instruments of the Dark Triad, the Dirty Dozen and the Short Dark Triad, and inspected the interference of the acquiescence bias in the factor structure of each measure. Participants were 449 students (mean age of 23.47 years; SD = 6.76; 64% females. Controlling for acquiescence produced factor solutions that were more theoretically interpretable than the standard bi-factor modeling, largely used in the field. Findings also raise questions about the theoretical underpinnings of both instruments. We argue that, despite valuable, brief measures of the Dark Triad traits should not come at the expense of a structure adequately reflecting the current knowledge about the multidimensionality of these traits.

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Author Biographies

Natália Costa Simões, Universidade São Francisco (USF), São Paulo, SP.

Doutoranda em Psicologia pela Universidade São Francisco (USF, Campinas, SP, Brasil), pesquisadora bolsista CAPES da Universidade São Francisco, Campinas, SP.

Nelson Hauck, Universidade São Francisco (USF), São Paulo, SP.

Doutor em Psicologia pela Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS, Porto Alegre, RS, Brasil), professor no Programa de Pós-Graduação Stricto Sensu em Psicologia da Universidade São Francisco, Campinas, SP.

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Published

2020-02-12

How to Cite

Simões, N. C., & Hauck, N. (2020). Acquiescence bias and the factor structure of the Dirty Dozen and the Short Dark Triad. Psico, 51(2), e33945. https://doi.org/10.15448/1980-8623.2020.2.33945

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