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

Janko Međedović; Tara Bulut

doi:10.47152/ziksi201703313

Authors

Janko Međedović Institute of Criminological and Sociological Research, Belgrade, Serbia https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6022-7934
Tara Bulut Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Serbia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47152/ziksi201703313

Keywords:

mračna tetrada, agresivni humor, cinizam, stavovi prema imigrantima

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 the pain of others) has been added to 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 with a community sample (N = 341) via an 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: R^²_s 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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