Malevolent Creativity and the Dark Tetrad – (Plenty of) Null Findings for Idea Generation Tasks

Past research has strongly emphasized the role of dark personality, particularly, the dark triad/tetrad in malevolent creativity. However, reported associations largely stem from self-report measures (e.g., the Malevolent Creativity Behavior Scale: MCBS), which has received criticism. For this reason, in two-independent studies, this paper scrutinizes the relevance of the dark triad/tetrad for performance in a malevolent creativity test (MCT). Associations were tested for total malevolent creativity, and followed up for originality, malevolence, and fluency of ideas. In study 1 (n = 307), neither correlations nor multiple regression models revealed any significant association of narcissism, Machiavellianism, or psychopathy with malevolent creativity performance metrics. In study 2 (n = 287), correlations between the dark tetrad and MCT creativity metrics were equally non-significant. Only in multiple regression models, a combination of high Machiavellianism, high psychopathy, and high sadism (three-way interaction) predicted higher total malevolent creativity. Overall, associations with MCT creativity metrics did not surpass small effects of f² = 0.02, showing that the apparently robust findings from malevolent creativity self-report do not replicate in malevolent creativity performance tests. It is thus possible that the dark triad/tetrad may be less relevant for malevolent idea generation that previously assumed.