Short Dark Triad (SD3) Assessment

Introduction:

The Dark Triad describes three socially aversive but distinct personality traits—Machiavellianism, Narcissism and Psychopathy—that shape manipulation style, empathy level and moral decision-making. Understanding individual positions on these traits clarifies relationship dynamics and predicts certain counter-productive behaviours.

This assessment delivers twenty-seven peer-reviewed statements, records your agreement on a five-point scale, reverse-scores negatively keyed items and averages each trait, producing three comparable 1-to-5 scores. A compact charting layer then visualises your results against normative values.

Use the tool to reflect on negotiation tactics or online interactions; results may surprise you yet should never replace professional evaluation. Results do not constitute a clinical diagnosis.

Technical Details:

Concept Overview

The Short Dark Triad (SD3) compresses a 64-item inventory into three balanced nine-item subscales while preserving reliability. Likert responses (1 = strongly disagree – 5 = strongly agree) feed a scoring routine that reverses specified items, groups them by trait and outputs mean values aligned to community norms.

Core Scoring Process

1. Convert each answer to an integer 1–5.
2. Invert scores for seven negatively keyed statements.
3. Segment answers into Machiavellianism, Narcissism and Psychopathy sets.
4. Sum each set and divide by nine to obtain trait means.
5. Contrast means with published norms and one-standard-deviation cut-offs.
6. Render results on an interactive bar charting layer.

Interpretation Thresholds

Scores above the elevated band suggest stronger tendencies toward the corresponding dark-trait behaviours; below-mean results indicate comparatively prosocial orientations.

Variables & Parameters

• response – integer 1–5 agreeing with each statement.
• rev – flag indicating a reverse-scored item.
• scale – target trait subgroup for the item.
• norm – community average used for comparison.

Worked Example

Assumptions & Limitations

• Self-report honesty is presumed.
• Norms derive from Western student samples may not generalise.
• Five-point scale limits sensitivity at extremes.
• Temporal mood shifts can distort trait-level inference.

Edge Cases & Error Sources

• Unanswered items halt scoring.
• All identical answers compress variance.
• Deliberate faking invalidates interpretability.
• Using norms from a dissimilar population skews comparison.

Scientific Validity & References

Jones & Paulhus (2014) validated the SD3 against longer inventories, reporting Cronbach’s α ≥ 0.80 and stable factor loadings. Subsequent studies confirmed construct independence and predictive power for unethical decision making and interpersonal exploitation.

Privacy & Compliance

The algorithm processes only non-identifiable questionnaire data and therefore falls outside HIPAA and GDPR special-category definitions.

Step-by-Step Guide:

Complete the screen in three straightforward stages.

1. Click Start Assessment to load the questionnaire.
2. Select a response for each statement; the progress bar shows completion percentage.
3. Review the bar chart and textual summary; export or note your scores for future reference.

FAQ:

Glossary:

Machiavellianism

Strategic manipulation with low affective empathy.

Narcissism

Self-centred grandiosity and entitlement.

Psychopathy

Impulsivity and callousness coupled with thrill seeking.

Reverse-scoring

Inverting response values to align interpretation direction.

Normative Mean

Average trait score observed in reference populations.