Theoretical and Empirical Integration of “Dark” Traits and Socially Aversive Personality Psychopathology

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

  • David D. Scholz
  • Johannes Zimmermann
  • Morten Moshagen
  • Zettler, Ingo
  • Benjamin E. Hilbig

Conceptual work integrating constructs from mainstream personality research (especially so-called “dark” traits) and clinical psychopathology research has been limited. Herein, we propose all socially and/or ethically aversive traits as “flavored” manifestations of the D factor of personality (D). We argue that the D framework provides the commonality of all aversive traits, including the aversive traits from the DSM-5 Alternative Model for Personality Disorders (AMPD), a more thorough theoretical foundation. Moreover, D covers aspects that are not captured by any of the aversive AMPD traits directly (e.g., greed), thus offering indications for possible expansions to the AMPD. We tested our predictions in two online studies (N = 1,781 and N = 2,006) using quota-representative samples of the German population regarding age and gender. Twelve aversive traits from mainstream personality research and eight aversive AMPD traits were assessed together with consequential behavior in an economic game. Analyses using structural equation modeling overall confirmed predictions.

Original languageEnglish
JournalJournal of Personality Disorders
Volume38
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)241-267
ISSN0885-579X
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2024

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Funding statement. This research was supported by a grant from the Deutsche Forsc-hungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) - GRK 2277 \u201CStatistical Modeling in Psychology.\u201D Data availability. Data used for the pilot study stem from the Prosocial Personality Project (PPP) and are, in part, a reanalysis of data used by both Scholz et al. (2022) and Hilbig et al. (2023). For details on that as well as access to all materials, data, and analysis scripts, please see the files accompanying this manuscript on the Open Science Framework (OSF; https://osf.io/uc38x/).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Guilford Press.

    Research areas

  • antagonism, dark factor of personality, dark traits, dark triad, DSM-5 Alternative Model for Personality Disorders, maladaptive traits, psychopathology

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