The dark tetrad of personality: review of recent research

Recent studies of socially aversive (negative) personality traits have focused on the expansion of different concepts and models. As a result, there emerged the Dark Tetrad personality model (which includes Machiavellianism, subclinical psychopathy, narcissism, and sadism). The paper provides a review of current works on the Dark Tetrad of personality. According to recent research, everyday sadism is a personality trait characterized by a tendency to purposefully humiliate people, causing physical, sexual or psychological suffering for the sake of pleasure. Similar manifestations of everyday sadism and the Dark Triad are antisocial behavior in everyday life and on the Internet. Everyday sadism is the best predictor of various features: deviant behavior in adolescents, affective and cognitive empathy, unprovoked aggression, bullying, cyberbullying, and counterproductive work behavior. Sadism and psychopathy have the darkest properties. In general, the results of the studies demonstrate that (1) sadism leads to greater stability of the Dark Tetrad as a complex of personality traits, (2) all of the dark properties overlap empirically and theoretically, and (3) the Dark Core is described by empathy deficit (callousness) and manipulativeness rather than other characteristics (e.g. Factor 1 of psychopathy).