Predicting dominance and prestige status-striving from the dark tetrad: The mediating role of indirect aggression

Evolutionary scholars have highlighted how there are two normative approaches to enhancing one’s status: dominance and prestige. Several individual differences have been found to differentially predict dominance and prestige status-seeking. The four socially aversive personality dimensions embodied within the Dark Tetrad (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism) seem to be important in understanding the nuance between dominance and prestige. Nonetheless, few researchers have assessed these relations and it is unclear what behavioural mechanisms may facilitate status-striving orientations among those with “darker” personality traits. In the current study, 516 North American adults (Mage = 37.90, SD = 12.76; 53.1% women) completed self-report measures for the Dark Tetrad, dominance and prestige status-striving, and the perpetration of indirect aggression. Using path analysis, narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, but not sadism, positively predicted dominance status-striving, whereas only narcissism positively predicted prestige. The perpetration of indirect aggression was found to mediate the links between psychopathy and sadism with dominance status-striving. Results reaffirm the importance of considering more malevolent personality characteristics regarding the different ways in which adults strive for, accrue, and maintain status. The strategic use of indirect aggression may be a salient means through which those higher in psychopathy and sadism pursue dominance status-striving.