Expanding the Nomological Network of Dark Tetrad: The Case of Cynicism, Aggressive Humor and Attitudes Towards Immigrants

Međedović, Janko and Bulut, Tara (2017) Expanding the Nomological Network of Dark Tetrad: The Case of Cynicism, Aggressive Humor and Attitudes Towards Immigrants. Zbornik Instituta za kriminološka i sociološka istraživanja, 36 (3). pp. 7-19. ISSN 0350-2694

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Abstract

The space of immoral, deceitful and antisocial personality dispositions has been usually depicted by the Dark Triad concept, consisted of psychopathy, Machiavellianism and narcissism. Recently, a trait of sadism (enjoyment in pain of others) has been added into the concept, thus forming the Dark Tetrad. In the present research, we tried to expand the nomological network of dark traits by exploring their relations with cynicism, aggressive humor and attitudes towards immigrants (operationalized as realistic and symbolic threat). The research has been conducted on a community sample (N=341) via online study. Study results showed that all of the criteria variables have been successfully predicted by the Dark Tetrad traits, however, the percentages of explained variance largely differed: R²s ranged from .11 (for symbolic threat) to .38 (for aggressive humor). Factor analysis showed that aggressive humor and cynicism can be largely viewed as expressions of the dark personality traits, while negative attitudes towards immigrants can be best conceptualized as a correlate of the Dark Tetrad. Research findings provided deeper insight into the motivational basis for cynicism and aggressive humor and revealed new possible dispositions for antagonism towards immigrants.

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