Relationships between the Dark Tetrad, alexithymia, and distress: Analysis at the facet level, antagonistic, and agentic factor of dark traits

Abstract

The main goal of this research is to determine the relationship between the Dark Tetrad traits and the alexithymia factors, taking into account the multidimensional nature of the dark lines, as well as their antagonistic (maladaptive) aspects and agency aspects (more adaptive aspects). Additionally, the mediator role of the alexithymia factors in the relationship between the dark traits and distress was examined. On a sample of 355 participants (71.3% female) from the general population, the following instruments were used: Twenty-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21), Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scales (LSRP), Five Factor Machiavellianism Inventory (FFMI), Short Form of the Five-Factor Narcissism Inventory (FFNI-SF), and Assessment of Sadistic Personality (ASP). The results showed that dark traits and alexithymia factors shared 56% of the common variance, and that the main predictors of alexithymia are secondary psychopathy in the positive direction and Machiavellian agency in the negative direction, followed by the narcissistic antagonism and primary psychopathy, both in a positive direction. The results showed that the factor od dark traits that contains agentic characteristics at the positive pole had a higher and negative contribution in explaining alexithymia and distress, compared to the factor that contains primarily antagonistic features. Based on dark traits, the most explained factor of alexithymia is those refers to problems in the identification of emotions, and this factor is also a significant mediator in the prediction of distress based on secondary psychopathy, Machiavellian agency, and both factors of dark traits. Therefore, this cognitive deficit in the understanding of emotions contributed to the increase of distress in the case of primarily antagonistic dark traits, while the agency factor through less problems in the identification of emotions contributed to the reduction of distress.