The dirty dozen: A concise measure of the dark triad.

By Jonason, Peter K.; Webster, Gregory D.

Psychological Assessment, Vol 22(2), Jun 2010, 420-432.

Abstract

There has been an exponential increase of interest in the dark side of human nature during the last decade. To better understand this dark side, the authors developed and validated a concise, 12-item measure of the Dark Triad: narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism.

In 4 studies involving 1,085 participants, they examined

its

structural reliability,
convergent and discriminant validity (Studies 1, 2, and 4), and
test–retest reliability (Study 3).

Their measure retained the flexibility needed to measure these 3 independent-yet-related constructs while improving its efficiency by reducing its item count by 87% (from 91 to 12 items).

The measure retained its core of

disagreeableness,
short-term mating, and
aggressiveness.

They call this measure the Dirty Dozen, but it cleanly measures the Dark Triad.