The relationship between the dark triad and guilt proneness: the mediating role of basic psychological needs satisfaction / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To explore the relationship between the dark triad, basic psychological needs satisfaction and guilty proneness.Methods:Totally 595 college students were randomly selected from Zhengzhou University.They were tested with the dirty dozen(DD), the balanced measure of psychological needs scale(BMPN) and guilt-proneness-5(GP-5). SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 21.0 were used for data analysis, including descriptive analysis, correlation analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Bootstrap measure was used for mediating effect test.Results:(1)The correlation analysis showed that the dark triad (29(21, 37)), Machiavellianism (4(4, 8)) and psychopathy(5(4, 9)) were negatively correlated with guilty proneness (20(16, 23)), and the correlation coefficients were -0.10, -0.22 and -0.18 respectively(all P<0.01). While narcissism (16(12, 21)) was not correlated with guilty proneness ( r=0.04, P>0.01). The satisfaction of basic psychological needs (56(54, 60)) was positively correlated with guilty proneness ( r=0.31, P<0.01). (2)The relationship between the dark triad and guilty proneness was partially mediated by basic psychological needs satisfaction, and the mediating effect accounted for 62.96%. Conclusion:The dark triad influences guilty proneness through basic psychological needs satisfaction.