Past research on socially aversive personalities has focused on subclinical psychopathy, subclinical narcissism, and Machiavellianism—the “Dark Triad” of personality. In the research reported here, we evaluated whether an everyday form of sadism should be added to that list. Acts of apparent cruelty were captured using two laboratory procedures, and we showed that such behavior could be predicted with two measures of sadistic personality. Study 1 featured a bug-killing paradigm. As expected, sadists volunteered to kill bugs at greater rates than did nonsadists. Study 2 examined willingness to harm an innocent victim. When aggression was easy, sadism and Dark Triad measures predicted unprovoked aggression. However, only sadists were willing to work for the opportunity to hurt an innocent person. In both studies, sadism emerged as an independent predictor of behavior reflecting an appetite for cruelty. Together, these findings support the construct validity of everyday sadism and its incorporation into a new “Dark Tetrad” of personality.
BaumeisterR. F.CampbellW. K. (1999). The intrinsic appeal of evil: Sadism, sensational thrills, and threatened egotism. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3, 210–221. doi:10.1207/s15327957pspr0303_4
2.
BaumeisterR. F.CataneseK. R.WallaceH. M. (2002). Conquest by force: A narcissistic reactance theory of rape and sexual coercion. Journal of General Psychology, 6, 92–135.
3.
BuckelsE. E.PaulhusD. L. (2012, June). Everyday sadism: Behavioral confirmation?Poster presented at the meeting of the Canadian Psychological Association, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
4.
BushmanB. J.BaumeisterR. F. (1998). Threatened egotism, narcissism, self-esteem, and direct and displaced aggression: Does self-love or self-hate lead to violence?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 219–229. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.75.1.219
5.
BushmanB. J.WhitakerJ. L. (2010). Like a magnet: Catharsis beliefs attract angry people to violent video games. Psychological Science, 21, 790–792. doi:10.1177/0956797610369494
6.
CampbellW. K.BonacciA. M.SheltonJ.ExlineJ. J.BushmanB. J. (2004). Psychological entitlement: Interpersonal consequences and validation of a self-report measure. Journal of Personality Assessment, 83, 29–45. doi:10.1207/s15327752jpa8301_04
7.
ChabrolH.Van LeeuwenN.RodgersR.SéjournéN. (2009). Contributions of psychopathic, narcissistic, Machiavellian, and sadistic personality traits to juvenile delinquency. Personality and Individual Differences, 47, 734–739. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2009.06.020
8.
DavisM. H. (1983). Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 113–126. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.44.1.113
9.
FedoroffJ. P. (2008). Sadism, sadomasochism, sex, and violence. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 53, 637–646.
10.
FurnhamA.RichardsS. C.PaulhusD. L. (2013). The Dark Triad: A 10 year review. Social & Personality Psychology Compass, 7, 199–216.
11.
Hahn-HolbrookJ.Holt-LunstadJ.HolbrookC.CoyneS. M.LawsonE. T. (2011). Maternal defense: Breast feeding increases aggression by reducing stress. Psychological Science, 22, 1288–1295. doi:10.1177/0956797611420729
12.
HaidtJ.McCauleyC.RozinP. (1994). Individual differences in sensitivity to disgust: A scale sampling seven domains of disgust elicitors. Personality and Individual Differences, 16, 701–713. doi:10.1016/0191-8869(94)90212-7
13.
JakobwitzS.EganV. (2006). The Dark Triad and normal personality traits. Personality and Individual Differences, 40, 331–339. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2005.07.006
14.
JohnO. P.SrivastavaS. (1999). The Big Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement, and theoretical perspectives. In PervinL. A.JohnO. P. (Eds.), Handbook of personality: Theory and research (2nd ed., pp. 102–138). New York, NY: Guilford Press.
15.
JonesD. N.FigueredoA. J. (2012). The core of darkness: Uncovering the heart of the Dark Triad. European Journal of Personality. Advance online publication. doi:10.1002/per.1893
16.
JonesD. N.PaulhusD. L. (2010). Different provocations trigger aggression in narcissists and psychopaths. Social Psychological & Personality Science, 1, 12–18. doi:10.1177/1948550609347591
17.
JonesD. N.PaulhusD. L. (2011). Differentiating the Dark Triad within the interpersonal circumplex. In HorowitzL. M.StrackS. (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal psychology: Theory, research, assessment, and therapeutic interventions (pp. 249–269). New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.
18.
JonesD. N.PaulhusD. L. (in press). Introducing the Short Dark Triad (SD3): A brief measure of dark personality traits. Assessment.
19.
KnightR. A. (1999). Validation of a typology for rapists. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 14, 303–329. doi:10.1177/088626099014003006
20.
LeeK.AshtonM. C. (2005). Psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and narcissism in the Five-Factor Model and the HEXACO model of personality structure. Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 1571–1582. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2004.09.016
21.
MalamuthN. M. (2003). Criminal and non-criminal sexual aggressors: Integrating psychopathy in a hierarchical-mediational confluence model. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 989, 33–58. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.2003.tb07292.x
22.
MartensA.KosloffS.GreenbergJ.LandauM. J.SchmaderT. (2007). Killing begets killing: Evidence from a bug-killing paradigm that initial killing fuels subsequent killing. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 1251–1264. doi:10.1177/0146167207303020
23.
MokrosA.OsterheiderM.HuckerS. J.NitschkeJ. (2011). Psychopathy and sexual sadism. Law and Human Behavior, 35, 188–199. doi:10.1007/s10979-010-9221-9
24.
NellV. (2006). Cruelty’s rewards: The gratifications of perpetrators and spectators. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 29, 211–257. doi:10.1017/S0140525X06009058
25.
NietzscheF. (1967). On the genealogy of morals: Second essay. In KaufmannW.HollingdaleR. J. (Trans.), On the genealogy of morals and ecce homo (pp. 57–96). New York, NY: Vintage Books. (Original work published 1887)
26.
NitschkeJ.OsterheiderM.MokrosA. (2009). A cumulative scale of severe sexual sadism. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 21, 262–278. doi:10.1177/1079063209342074
27.
OlatunjiB. O.WilliamsN. L.TolinD. F.AbramowitzJ. S.SawchukC. N.LohrJ. M.ElwoodL. S. (2007). The Disgust Scale: Item analysis, factor structure, and suggestions for refinement. Psychological Assessment, 19, 281–297. doi:10.1037/1040-3590.19.3.281
28.
O’MearaA.DaviesJ.HammondS. (2011). The psychometric properties and utility of the Short Sadistic Impulse Scale (SSIS). Psychological Assessment, 23, 523–531. doi:10.1037/a0022400
29.
PaulhusD. L.JonesD. N. (in press). Measuring dark personalities via questionnaire. In BoyleG. J.SaklofskeD. H. (Eds.), Measures of personality and social psychological constructs. San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
30.
PaulhusD. L.WilliamsK. M. (2002). The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality, 36, 556–563. doi:10.1016/S0092-6566(02)00505-6
31.
ReidyD. E.ZeichnerA.SeibertL. A. (2011). Unprovoked aggression: Effects of psychopathic traits and sadism. Journal of Personality, 79, 75–100. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00691.x
32.
TaylorK. (2009). Cruelty: Human evil and the human brain. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
33.
VernonP. A.VillaniV. C.VickersL. C.HarrisJ. A. (2008). A behavioral genetic investigation of the Dark Triad and the Big 5. Personality and Individual Differences, 44, 445–452. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2007.09.007
34.
WoodworthM.PorterS. (2002). In cold blood: Characteristics of criminal homicide as a function of psychopathy. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111, 436–445. doi:10.1037//0021-843X.111.3.436
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
