The dirty dozen: A concise measure of the dark triad.

TLDR

There has been an exponential increase of interest in the dark side of human nature during the last decade. The authors aimed to better understand this dark side by developing and validating a concise 12‑item measure of the Dark Triad. They conducted four studies with 1,085 participants to assess the measure’s structural reliability, convergent and discriminant validity, and test‑retest reliability. The resulting Dirty Dozen retained the core dimensions of disagreeableness, short‑term mating, and aggressiveness, preserved independent yet related constructs, and cut the item count by 87 % from 91 to 12.

Abstract

There has been an exponential increase of interest in the dark side of human nature during the last decade. To better understand this dark side, the authors developed and validated a concise, 12-item measure of the Dark Triad: narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism. In 4 studies involving 1,085 participants, they examined its structural reliability, convergent and discriminant validity (Studies 1, 2, and 4), and test-retest reliability (Study 3). Their measure retained the flexibility needed to measure these 3 independent-yet-related constructs while improving its efficiency by reducing its item count by 87% (from 91 to 12 items). The measure retained its core of disagreeableness, short-term mating, and aggressiveness. They call this measure the Dirty Dozen, but it cleanly measures the Dark Triad.