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Development and evaluation of the short Dark Triad – Chinese version (SD3-C)

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Abstract

The popular short Dark Triad (SD3) measure was translated into Chinese (SD3-C). In two large samples (total N = 950), we evaluated its psychometric properties, including: (a) factorial structure, and (b) reliability estimates and intercorrelations of the three subscales. The nomological network was explored by showing links with established personality models, namely, the Five-Factor and HEXACO models. Congruence coefficients showed a correspondence of factor loadings across English and Chinese versions as a first hint at measurement invariance. Overall, our results suggest that scores derived from the SD3-C behave similarly to the English SD3 and can be used for future research.

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Notes

  1. Two previous translations were attempted: (1) the version by Geng et al. (2015) was not structurally sound and (2) the version by Li (2014) has not been made available to other researchers.

  2. For a copy of the Chinese version, please contact the first author.

  3. We freely estimated the correlations among residuals of corresponding reverse-scored items as recommended by Gnambs and Schroeders in press.

  4. By replicating these patterns, our results also indirectly validate the Chinese BFI (Sun 2015) and Chinese HEXACO inventories (Li 2014).

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Acknowledgments

We thank the school principals, teachers and students whose support made this study possible.

Funding

This work was sponsored by Peak Discipline Construction Project of Education at East China Normal University. The third author received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities of Canada.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, Department of Educational Psychology, East China Normal University, Zhongshan North Road 3663, Shanghai, 200062, China

    Jing Zhang

  2. Institute für Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Matthias Ziegler

  3. Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Delroy L. Paulhus

Authors
  1. Jing Zhang
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  2. Matthias Ziegler
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  3. Delroy L. Paulhus
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Correspondence to Jing Zhang.

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Zhang, J., Ziegler, M. & Paulhus, D.L. Development and evaluation of the short Dark Triad – Chinese version (SD3-C). Curr Psychol 39, 1161–1171 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00272-3

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