engleski

Liar, liar: The Dark Tetrad and self-perceived ability to tell and to detect lies

The Dark Tetrad consists of four socially aversive, but subclinical traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and everyday sadism. Since all these traits are characterized by a tendency to manipulate others, the present study aimed to examine their relationship with self-rated lying ability and the ability to detect lies. Data were collected on a convenience sample of 439 participants (15.5% male ; Mage = 25.42, SDage = 7.94) and online within a larger project. Dark personality traits were measured using Short Dark Tetrad (SD4), and alpha reliabilities ranged from .68 to .77. Participants were asked to rate their lying ability and the ability to detect lies (both compared to others) on a scale ranging from 1 (much worse) to 11 (much better). They were also asked to indicate the estimation of the percentage of their undiscovered lies. At the level of bivariate relationships, all dark traits were positively associated with lying ability, and all dark traits except Machiavellianism were positively associated with the ability to detect lies. The percentage of undiscovered lies was significantly positively associated with Machiavellianism and sadism. To examine the contribution of dark traits to the explanation of self-rated lying ability, ability to detect lies, and percentage of undiscovered lies, hierarchical regression analyses were performed, with sex and age entered at the first, and dark traits entered at the second step of analyses. Variance explained by dark traits, over and above age and sex, was 13.1% for lying ability, F(4, 425) = 17.04, p < .001 ; 8.5% for ability to detect lies, F(4, 426) = 9.95, p < .001 ; and 3.4% for the percentage of undiscovered lies, F(4, 422) = 93.74, p = .005. Sadism (β = .26, t = 4.73, p < .001), followed by narcissism (β = .18, t = 3.73, p < .001) were significant positive predictors of lying ability. These two dark traits were also significant positive predictors of the ability to detect lies, with narcissism (β = .25, t = 4.87, p < .001) being a stronger predictor than sadism (β = .12, t = 2.06, p = .040). Finally, only higher sadism was predictive for a higher percentage of undiscovered lies (β = .15, t = 2.44, p = .015). Findings concerning narcissism are in line with expectations, while the role of sadism in explanation of self-perceived lying abilities and the ability to detect lies is far more interesting. Taken together, results point to distinctiveness of narcissism and sadism in dark personality space.

Dark Tetrad ; self-perceived lying ability ; self-perceived ability to detect lies

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