Dirty Dozen Scale: a study of adaptation to Turkish university students

Abstract

Objective: In recent years, Machiavellianism, psychopathy and narcissism have been considered together as the dark sides of the personality. In this study, the purpose is to adapt the Dirty Dozen Scale to Turkish culture. Methods: Four steps have been conducted in this study. These studies are linguistic equivalence study, structure and concurrent validity study, predictive validity study, and reliability study, respectively. Nine hundred and thirty-two university students (61% female), who were included in the four steps, participated in the study. Results: Applying a confirmatory factor analysis [chi(2)((5)(1,430)())=145.16, p<0.001; CFI=0.96; GFI=0.95; IFI=0.96; SRMR=0.047; RMSEA= 0.066, 90% Cl (0.053-0.078)] a structure was determined made up of three factors which corroborated the structure of the original scale. The result of the predictive validity showed that physical aggression positively predicted Machiavellianism, psychopathy and narcissism; verbal aggression positively predicted psychopathy and narcissism; anger positively predicted psychopathy and narcissism; hostility positively predicted psychopathy and narcissism. The Cronbach's alpha coefficients have been calculated as 0.79 for Machiavellianism, 0.71 for psychopathy and 0.87 for narcissism. Discussion: The findings of the study have shown that the Turkish form of the Dirty Dozen Scale is a valid and reliable scale to measure the Machiavellianism, psychopathy and narcissism personality traits. Future studies will cast light on the understanding of the structure of the Dark Triad Personality Traits in Turkish culture.