What do sadists value? Is honesty-humility an intermediary? Replicating and extending findings on the link between values and “dark” personalities

- Core values and “dark personality” research is limited.
- Replicating past Dark Triad values links is needed.
- Sadism-values links also investigated.
- Past and expected correlations between Dark Tetrad and values mostly replicated.
- Honesty-humility moderated the values-psychopathy and values-narcissism links.

This study examined the relationship of the Dark Tetrad with core values, and the role of honesty-humility as a moderator of the “dark” personality-core values link. A sample of 183 participants (57 male, 126 female; Mage = 18.39 years, SD = 1.12) completed an online survey assessing the Dark Tetrad, the 10 values from the Schwartz Value Typology, and honesty-humility from the HEXACO. Several Dark Triad-core value correlations were replicated. Furthermore, some of the predicted links between sadism and values were also corroborated using both novel and established sadism measures. The moderating role of honesty-humility on the link between each Dark Tetrad member and aggregated core values was explored. Honesty-humility moderated only the following relationships: psychopathy and Self-Enhancement Plus Openness to Change values, and narcissism and Self-Enhancement Plus Openness to Change values. These findings contribute to understanding how personality traits and values describe people's behaviour in interpersonal contexts.