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A Test of Three Sadism Measures: Short Sadistic Impulse Scale, Varieties of

Sadistic Tendencies, and Assessment of Sadistic Personality

Article  in  Journal of Individual Differences · March 2020

DOI: 10.1027/1614-0001/a000319

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Please cite this manuscript as:

Dinić, B.M., Bulut Allred, T., Petrović, B., & Wertag, A. (2020). A test of three sadism
measures: Short Sadistic Impulse Scale, Varieties of Sadistic Tendencies, and Assessment of
Sadistic Personality. Journal of Individual Differences. Online fist.
https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000319

A test of three sadism measures: Short Sadistic Impulse Scale,

Varieties of Sadistic Tendencies, and Assessment of Sadistic Personality

The aim of this study was to evaluate psychometric properties of three sadism scales: Short

Sadistic Impulse Scale (SSIS), Varieties of Sadistic Tendencies (VAST, which measures

direct and vicarious sadism), and Assessment of Sadistic Personality (ASP). Sample included

443 participants (50.1% men) from the general population. Reliability based on internal

consistency of all scales was good, and results of confirmatory factor analysis showed that all

three scales had acceptable fit indices for the proposed structure. Results of Item Response

Theory analysis showed that all three scales had higher measurement precision (information)

in above-average scores. Validity of the scales was supported through moderate to high

positive correlations with the Dark Triad traits, especially psychopathy, as well as positive

correlations with aggressiveness and negative with Honesty-Humility. Moreover, results of

hierarchical regression analysis showed that all three measures of direct, but not vicarious

sadism, contributed significantly above and beyond other Dark Triad traits to the prediction

of increased positive attitudes toward dangerous social groups. The profile similarity index

showed that the SSIS and the ASP were highly overlapping, while vicarious sadism seems

distinct from other sadism scales.

Key words: sadism; SSIS; VAST; ASP; Dark Tetrad

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1. Introduction

Sadism is a concept most broadly defined as a tendency towards intentionally hurting others,

physically, sexually or psychologically, with the means of asserting dominance, or for mere

pleasure (Buckels, Jones, & Paulhus, 2013; O'Meara, Davies, & Hammond, 2011). During

the past decade, research on sadistic tendencies became more prolific. At the same time, the

concept of sadism crossed over from clinical and forensic contexts to being studied as a

subclinical occurrence in the general population. This trend was initiated by the seminal work

of Chabrol, Van Leeuwen, Rodgers, and Séjourné (2009), who first proposed the introduction

of sadism as the fourth dark trait in the Dark Tetrad of personality, along with

Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy (previously known as the Dark Triad of

personality, see Paulhus, 2014). In that vein, there is mounting evidence indicating that

sadism is indeed a moderately overlapping, yet distinct construct in relation to other Dark

Tetrad members (e.g., Book et al., 2016). Moreover, sadism shares the same “core” as the

Dark Triad traits, consisting of low Honesty-Humility and low Emotionality from the

HEXACO personality model (e.g., Book et al., 2016). Paulhus, Curtis, and Jones (2017) offer

an alternative view of the mutual characteristics of the dark traits, highlighting the role of

aggressiveness, but considering the multidimensionality of this trait, since there are different

triggers for aggression for specific dark traits. Thus, although all dark traits could be linked to

aggressive behavior, only sadism is linked to unprovoked aggression when personal costs

were incurred and only sadists are willing to expend more time and energy to hurt an

innocent person (Buckels et al., 2013). These results indicated that those with high sadism

would rather patiently wait for the right moment to harm another or exact revenge, and not

act immediately, which is a characteristic of narcissistic or psychopathic aggression.

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So far, several sadism measures have been developed. The first was the Short Sadistic

Impulse Scale (SSIS: O'Meara et al., 2011), derived from the Sadistic Attitudes and

Behaviors Scale. O'Meara et al. (2011) documented a positive correlation of sadism with

interpersonal dominance in social relations, negative relations to empathy (primarily to the

facet of personal insensitivity), and negative relations to the experienced warmth of parental

care. This measure is also associated with delinquency (Chabrol, et al., 2009), cynicism and

aggressive humor, and increased negative attitudes towards derogated groups, more

specifically, immigrants (Međedović & Bulut, 2017). Among the basic personality traits, the

SSIS showed the strongest negative correlations with Honesty-Humility (Meere & Egan,

2017).

Another widely used scale is the Varieties of Sadistic Tendencies (VAST: Paulhus & Jones,

2015). The VAST measures direct sadism by assessing enjoyment in physical or

psychological harm, and vicarious sadism by focusing on pleasure derived from passive

observation of others being hurt. Moreover, it is associated with exhibiting hurting behaviors

(Buckels et al., 2013) and engaging in antisocial punishment (Pfattheicher & Schindler,

2015).. VAST shows positive correlations with other dark traits and the highest negative with

Honesty-Humility and Emotionality (Book et al., 2016).

The newest addition to the existing measures of sadism is the Assessment of Sadistic

Personality (ASP: Plouffe, Saklofske, & Smith, 2017). The authors’ motivation for

developing a new scale stemmed from potential limitations of the already existing ones,

including their narrow scope or lack of focus on the subjugating aspects of sadistic demeanor.

The ASP correlates positively with other dark traits and sadism measures and negatively with

emotional intelligence, Emotionality, Honesty-Humility, Agreeableness, and

Conscientiousness (Plouffe et al., 2017; Plouffe, Smith, & Saklofske, 2018). The ASP also

has negative relations with core values, such as benevolence and universalism, which
 4

represent understanding and preserving the welfare of others (Balakrishnan, Plouffe, &

Saklofske, 2017). Moreover, the ASP predicts right-wing political orientation (Duspara &

Greitemeyer, 2017), associated with positive evaluation of dangerous social groups (Duckitt

& Sibley, 2007).

The development of sadism measures has been dynamic so far. The creators of VAST

pointed out the need for excluding certain items containing provoked aggression and causing

harm with the purpose of dominating others, without any indication of taking pleasure in it.

These, they claim, are specifically underlying psychopathic motivations (e.g., Buckels et al.,

2013). In contrast, the authors of the ASP focused on the previously mentioned O'Meara et al.

(2011) concept of sadism, which captures seeking pleasure in harming others, deficits in

empathy, as well as dominance assertion.

The Aims of the Present Study

The aim of this study was to evaluate psychometric properties (reliability and validity) of the

three sadism scales (SSIS, VAST, and ASP), and to add to cross-cultural and further

validation of these scales. To the best of our knowledge, there is only one recent study

conducted on a sample from USA that compared all three scales (Min, Pavisic, Howald,

Highhouse, & Zickar, 2019). Results showed incremental validity of all three scales

separately in the prediction of three out of four indicators of workplace mistreatment.

However, different cultural norms could shape behaviors related to sadism (e.g., antisocial

punishment, aggression, violence...). For example, antisocial punishment is more prone in

collectivistic societies (Herrmann et al., 2008), but aggression in individualistic societies

(e.g., Bergmüller, 2013). Thus, it seems important to test cross-cultural validity of sadism

measures in different cultural contexts outside the strongly individualistic cultures such is
 5

American. In this study we tested validity of Serbian adaptation of three sadism measures.

Serbian society could be characterized as more collectivistic (e.g., Mojic, 2003), but the

dynamic changes from a socialism to a liberal capitalism contribute to the strengthening some

of the individualistic values. Thus, Serbian culture could be seen as transitional from

collectivistic to individualistic, and it represents a different cultural context compared to

context of previous research exploring the psychometric properties of sadism.

For exploration of construct validity, we used measures of the Dark Triad traits, as well as the

measures which are usually used for validation of dark traits, i.e. HEXACO and

aggressiveness traits. We expected that sadism measures would have moderate to high

correlations with other dark traits, as well as with the basic personality traits which represent

the “core” of the Dark Triad (i.e. low Honesty-Humility and Emotionality; Book et al., 2016,

or high aggressiveness; Paulhus et al., 2017). Moreover, we opted to further explore the

nomological network of sadism, and test the relations of sadism with attitudes toward specific

social groups (derogated, dangerous, and dissident groups). Previous studies showed that the

Dark Triad traits were positively associated with prejudice, discrimination, racism,

conservativism, and right-wing authoritarianism (see Duspara & Greitemeyer, 2017; Koehn,

Jonason, & Davis, 2019). In line with these findings, we expected that sadism would be

related to increased negative attitudes toward derogated groups, e.g., immigrants (e.g.,

Međedović & Bulut, 2017) and to increased positive attitudes toward dangerous groups.

Namely, dangerous groups and their activities could serve as a medium for projecting and

channeling sadistic tendencies exerted on others (Buckels, Jones, & Paulhus, 2013). Finally,

we anticipated that sadism scales would show incremental validity and explain attitudes

toward specific social groups above and beyond the Dark Triad traits. The same approach

was used, for example, by Jonason, Zeigler-Hill, and Okan (2017), who questioned the

introduction of sadism into dark traits constellation. Therefore, we wanted to test whether the
 6

inclusion of each of sadism measures has significant incremental contribution in explanation

of other constructs usually linked to malevolent traits, in order to get a better insight into

validity of these scales.

2. Method

2.1. Participants and procedure

The sample included 443 participants from the general population in Serbia (50.1% men),

aged between 19 and 40 years (M = 28.10, SD = 6.60), with majority were highly educated

(34.1% were students and 29.2% had a university master’s degree). Data were collected

online as a part of students’ pre-exam activities. Each student had to send a link with

measures to six participants within given sex (3 males and 3 females) and age quotas (18-25,

26-30, 31-40). The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board.

2.2. Measures

2.2.1. Sadism. Three measures of sadism were used: 1) Short Sadistic Impulse Scale (SSIS:

O'Meara et al., 2011, for Serbian adaptation see Međedović & Bulut, 2017); 2) Varieties of

Sadistic Tendencies (VAST: Paulhus & Jones, 2015, for Serbian adaptation see Međedović,

2017); 3) Assessment of Sadistic Personality (ASP: Plouffe et al., 2017; for Serbian

adaptation, see Supplement).

2.2.2. Personality traits. Three measures of personality traits were used: 1) Short Dark Triad

(SD3: Jones & Paulhus, 2014, for the Serbian adaptation see Dinić, Petrović, & Jonason,

2018) measuring three dark traits - Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy; 2)

 7

HEXACO-60 (Ashton & Lee, 2009; for the Serbian adaptation of HEXACO-100 see

Međedović, Čolović, Dinić, & Smederevac, 2017), measuring six basic personality traits

from the HEXACO model; 3) Aggressiveness Questionnaire AVDH (Dinić, Mitrović, &

Smederevac, 2014) measuring four facets of aggressiveness (anger, vengefulness, dominance,

hostility).

2.2.3. Attitudes towards social groups. We used affective thermometer ratings of social

groups (Duckitt & Sibley, 2007), which measure attitudes towards derogated groups (e.g., the

mentally handicapped, immigrants), dangerous groups (e.g., violent criminals, drug dealers),

and dissident groups (e.g., protestors, feminists), by asking participants to indicate the

"warmth" of their feeling towards each of the groups on a scale ranging from 0 (least warm

or favorable) to 100 (most warm or favorable).

All measures, except for the thermometer, had a 5-point Likert-type scale for answering

(from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). Reliabilities and number of items are

presented in Table 3.

2.3. Data analysis

A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted on all sadism scales separately, in order

to test the two conditions for using Item Response Theory (IRT) analysis - unidimensionality

and local independence. Unidimensionality was assessed via fit indices for the proposed

models and local independence was assessed via correlations of residuals, which should be

lower than .20 (Harlow, 2014). Following Hu and Bentler's (1999) recommendations, a

combination of the comparative fit index (CFI), the Tucker-Lewis index (TLI), the root mean

square error of approximation (RMSEA), and the standardized root mean residual (SRMR)

was used to determine the model fit with CFI and TLI > .95 and RMSEA and SRMR < .06
 8

as evidence of a good fit. The analysis was conducted in the “lavaan” R package (Rosseel,

2012).

Further, IRT analysis was conducted (graded response model). The main advantage of the

IRT over the Classical Test Theory is in providing information on the scale, i.e. precision of

measurement across the entire range of the scales' scores. The information tells us how

accurately each trait level is being estimated and how accurately the differences between

individuals could be estimated at different trait levels. The IRT analysis was run in the “ltm”

R package (Rizopoulos, 2006).

In order to determine construct validity, we calculated zero-order correlations. To test

whether sadism items formed a factor separate from the Dark Triad items, a CFA was

conducted. Several models were tested: 1) a four-factor model, with each factor comprising

items from one of the Dark Tetrad members; 2) a five-factor model with separate direct and

vicarious sadism items; 3) a six-factor model with separate factors for each of the four sadism

scales; 4) a four-factor model with Machiavellianism and psychopathy combined, as

suggested by Persson, Kajonius, and Garcia (2019), and direct and vicarious sadism

separated; 4) a three-factor model, including two sadism factors and the Dark Triad as the

third factor. Moreover, to test incremental validity, we conducted a hierarchical regression

analysis with positive attitudes towards social groups as a criterion. In order to control for

their effects, sex and age were included in the first step, the Dark Triad traits were introduced

in the second step, and sadism scales were added separately in the third step.

3. Results

3.2. Factor structure of sadism scales and the IRT analysis

 9

The results of the CFA showed that the SSIS and the ASP had good fit indices for the one-

factor model (Table 1). In the case of VAST, the two-factor model was significantly better

than the one-factor model (Δχ2(1) = 7.22, p < .001) and it had good fit indices, although the

SRMR was slightly above the recommended criteria. In VAST, reverse coded items (6, 9, and

15) had loadings < .30, while reverse coded item 4 in the SSIS had a marginal loading (.31).

In the case of the ASP, item 6 had a marginal loading (.27). Correlations between residuals

were smaller than .20 (in the range from .00 to .20), which indicated that there was no

violation of local independence. Thus, conditions for the IRT were met.

TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE

The results of the IRT analysis showed that all scales were more precise in above-average

scores, which was most noticeable in the case of the SSIS and direct sadism from VAST

(Figure 1). Thus, the precision of the measurements was better for those who obtained higher

scores on the scales, i.e. the scales seemed more accurate for those who achieved high scores.

FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE

3.3. The Dark Tetrad structure

The results of the CFA showed that all proposed models had good fit indices (Table 2). The

best fitted models were Model 2 and Model 3 and there was no significant differences

between them (Δχ2(11) = 19.63, p = .051), but the correlations between SSIS, ASP and

VAST direct sadism were over 1. This indicates that these factors should be combined. Thus,

the Dark Tetrad model, in which direct or “core” sadism was separated from vicarious sadism
 10

(Model 2, see Table A in Supplement), showed the best model fit (for example, it was

significantly better than the second-best model, Model 1, Δχ2(4) = 156.90, p < .001) and

appropriate parameters, with no correlations between factors higher than 1. In line with

previous results on VAST, these results indicated that the two aspects of sadism should be

separated.

TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE

3.4. Reliability and construct validity

Cronbach's alphas were good for the SSIS and the ASP, and satisfactory for the VAST scores

(Table 3). All sadism scales were highly inter-correlated, except for vicarious sadism. Among

the dark traits, psychopathy had high correlations with the SSIS and the ASP, which were

almost the same as between VAST direct sadism and other sadism measures. SSIS and ASP

scales obtained moderate correlations with all aggressiveness facets, except with hostility.

Honesty-Humility, followed by Conscientiousness and Agreeableness, were the dominant

correlates of sadism scales among the HEXACO traits, although correlations were small.

Correlations between sadism scales and attitudes towards social groups were also small, but it

could be noticed that correlations between Dark Triad traits and attitudes were also small

(ranged from .04 to .36, Table 3). Among correlations between sadism scales and attitudes

towards social groups, the highest correlation was with increased positive attitudes towards

dangerous groups. Although correlations with derogated and dissident groups were small,

they are in opposite direction, compared to correlations with attitudes towards dangerous

groups, meaning that sadism measures are related to increased negative attitudes towards
 11

these groups. Profile distances1 were small (e.g., between the SSIS and the ASP) to medium

(between the ASP and both direct and vicarious sadism, see Table 3).

TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE

The results of the hierarchical regression analyses showed that all sadism scales, except for

VAST vicarious sadism, had a significant contribution to favoring the dangerous groups

(Table 4). Direct sadism had a slightly higher contribution as only this scale showed a

significant negative contribution to favoring the derogated groups.

TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE

4. Discussion

The purpose of this study was to explore psychometric characteristics of Serbian adaptation

of three sadism scales: the SSIS, VAST, and the ASP. The results showed that all three

sadism scales reached satisfactory fit indices for the proposed models. These results are in

line with studies conducted in USA and Canada (see, e.g., Paulhus & Jones, 2015 for SSIS

and VAST, Plouffe et al., 2017, 2018 for ASP) as well as in Europe (Kowalski, Di Pierro,

Plouffe, Rogoza, & Saklofske, 2019 for ASP), adding evidence to the cross-cultural factorial

stability of sadism scales. It was noticeable that reverse coded items had low loadings, which

was also pointed out in the previous studies (Plouffe et al., 2017, 2018). Regardless of that,

all scales had good reliabilities based on internal consistency. It was noticeable that both

VAST scales obtained somewhat smaller, but still acceptable alpha values, in line with
1
Profile similarity was expressed as Cronbach and Gleaser's (1953) D statistic, which represents (dis)similarity
with lower values indicating smaller distance, e.g. higher similarity. Correlations with all variables presented in
Table 3 were taken into account.
 12

previous studies (e.g., Buckels et al., 2014). Moreover, all scales were more precise in the

above-average score range, meaning that they better differentiate individuals with high

sadism, compared to those with low or average level of sadism. This is particularly obvious

in the case of the SSIS and direct sadism from VAST, which mostly capture the “hurting”

aspect of sadism.

The results of the joined CFA on sadism and the Dark Triad items clearly indicated that

sadism formed a factor separate from the Dark Triad traits, and that two forms of sadism

(direct or “core” and vicarious sadism) could be distinguished. This was also confirmed by

the low correlation between the VAST vicarious sadism and other sadism scales, as well as

the larger profile distances between them. Moreover, only vicarious sadism did not show

significant incremental validity in the prediction of attitudes towards specific social groups.

This is a novel finding, since the incremental validity of all three sadism scales was

confirmed previously, however, without testing incremental validity of direct and vicarious

sadism separately (Min et al., 2019). Furthermore, results showed that all sadism measures

were related to Dark Core, i.e. to low Honesty-Humility, but VAST vicarious sadism

obtained somewhat smaller correlations compared to direct sadism, which is in line with

previous studies in other cultures (e.g., Plouffe et al., 2018). Although both forms of sadism

showed approximately the same pattern of relations with personality traits, it seems that they

had different behavioral correlates. Compared to direct sadism, vicarious sadism was not

related to direct assault, but rather to indirect and passive forms of violence-related behavior

(Russell & King, 2018). Vicarious sadism conceptually represents a form of sadism “by

proxy”, achieving pleasure through observing or engaging in activities that simulate harming

others (Buckels et al., 2013). Future studies should further explore the unique correlates of

vicarious sadism, by studying phenomena that indirectly satisfy channeled sadistic

 13

tendencies, such as watching extreme sports and horror movies, playing violent video games,

expressing certain interests and hobbies or engaging in specific types of online activities.

Further, the results showed that there is a large overlap between the SSIS and the ASP. They

showed a similar pattern of correlations with validity variables, with psychopathy and

vengefulness emerging as the dominant correlates. This is in line with previous studies,

which showed high correlations between sadism measures, the same pattern of correlations

between sadism measures and other variables, as well as high correlations between

psychopathy and sadism scales (e.g., Min et al., 2019; Plouffe et al., 2017; Kowalski et al.,

2019). Although the VAST scales obtained smaller correlations with validity measures, the

direct sadism scale, similar to the SSIS and the ASP, showed significant incremental validity

in prediction of increased positive attitudes towards dangerous social groups. This is in line

with the implications of some previous studies (e.g., Balakrishnan et al., 2017). We could

assume that people with high sadism scores would positively evaluate dangerous social

groups as they might belong to dangerous social groups themselves and these groups could

serve them in threatening and hurting others, especially the innocent ones (e.g., Buckels et al.,

2013). O'Meara et al. (2011) showed that sadism is related to interpersonal dominance in

social relations. Thus, members of dangerous social groups all tend to pose direct physical

threats to societal order and security, which is why a connection with the direct or “hurting”

aspect of sadism is expected as a likable and desirable trait of people or groups with similar

antisocial characteristics. It should be noted that incremental contribution of sadism measures

in prediction of attitudes towards social groups above the Dark Triad traits was small, which

is in line with Jonason et al. (2017) findings. However, these results give us better insight into

similarities and differences between three sadism measures. Finally, Machiavellianism

predicted increased negative attitudes towards all social groups. Potential reason for this

might be the general negative cynical and misanthropic attitude in Machiavellians (e.g.,
 14

Paulhus, 2014). On the other hand, psychopathy, similar as sadism, is characterized by

supporting of dangerous groups. We assume that these groups could serve psychopaths as an

instrument for dominating others. Narcissism was not a significant predictor of attitudes

towards any of the social groups.

There are several limitations of this research. Firstly, all validity variables were self-report

measures. Secondly, although the contribution of sadism measures to the prediction of

attitudes toward social groups represents an important and novel connection between sadism

and attitudes towards various social groups, an additional evaluation of the criterion validity

of the sadism measures should be conducted, with criteria like engaging in antisocial

punishment, vandalism, and specific criminal acts. Finally, the belonging to explored social

groups should be included in future studies to further explore ingroup and outgroup attitudes

and group evaluations.

Taken together, this research showed that Serbian adaptations of three prominent measures of

sadism, the SSIS, VAST, and the ASP, have good psychometric properties. This applies

above all to the SSIS and the ASP, and to a certain extent, the VAST direct sadism scale. Our

study indicated that VAST vicarious sadism has lower correlations with other measures of

sadism and other validity measures, and that it does not have incremental validity in

prediction of the attitudes toward specific social groups. In this context, the results of this

study indicate that the SSIS and the ASP are highly overlapping and should be used as short

measures of sadism. Results further support the cross-cultural validity of sadism measures.

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Table 1

Fit indices for models of sadism scales

WLSM χ2(df) CFI TLI RMSEA (90% of CI) SRMR

SSIS 108.72(35) .97 .97 .03 (.02-.04) .06

VAST one-factor 279.78(104) .95 .94 .04 (.04-.05) .11

two-factors 250.27(103) .96 .95 .04 (.03-.04) .09

ASP 43.36(27) .99 .99 .02 (.05-.03) .05

Note. All χ2s were significant at p < .001.

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Table 2

Fit indices for proposed dark traits models

Model WLSM χ2(df) CFI TLI RMSEA (90% CI) SRMR

1 4302.70(1823) .94 .94 .04 (.04-.04) .07

2 4145.80(1819) .95 .95 .04 (.04-.04) .07

3 4128.59(1808) .95 .95 .04 (.04-.04) .07

4 4529.81(1823) .94 .94 .04 (.04-.04) .07

5 5125.95(1826) .93 .92 .05 (.04-.05) .08

Note. 1 = four-factor model (Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, sadism), 2 = five-

factor model with separate direct or “core” sadism from VAST vicarious sadism

(Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, direct sadism, vicarious sadism), 3 = six-factor

model (Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, and four sadism measures), 4 = four-

factor model with Machiavellianism and psychopathy combined, narcissism, direct sadism,

vicarious sadism, 5 = three-factor model with Machiavellianism, psychopathy and narcissism

combined, direct sadism, vicarious sadism). All χ2s were significant at p < .001.
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Table 3

Correlations between used measures

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

1 SSIS -
.51
2 VAST Direct -
(0.23)
3 VAST .43 .30
-
Vicarious (0.32) (0.15)
.73 .56 .55
4 ASP -
(0.17) (0.36) (0.45)
5
Machiavelliani .28 .15 .25 .33 -
sm
6 Psychopathy .52 .30 .33 .53 .56 -
7 Narcissism .26 .16 .11 .27 .48 .47 -
8 Honesty-
-.32 -.28 -.22 -.39 -.54 -.52 -.45 -
Humility
9 Emotionality -.09 -.06 -.03 -.14 -.03 -.20 -.18 -.01 -
10
-.02 .05 -.07 -.03 .08 .11 .50 -.08 -.20 -
Extraversion
11
-.21 -.08 -.06 -.20 -.28 -.31 -.30 .24 -.06 -.10 -
Agreeableness
12
Conscientious -.25 -.18 -.15 -.30 -.13 -.33 -.05 .30 -.05 .15 .04 -
ness
13 Openness -.08 -.10 -.01 -.12 -.10 -.10 .06 .14 -.02 .10 .06 .22 -
14 Anger .38 .18 .24 .38 .40 .56 .32 -.30 .15 .00 -.53 -.31 -.18 -
15
.45 .31 .27 .48 .58 .76 .39 -.46 -.08 .04 -.38 -.24 -.16 .58 -
Vengefulness
16 Dominance .36 .27 .26 .41 .57 .65 .60 -.49 -.12 .28 -.45 -.21 -.07 .61 .67 -
17 Hostility .24 .12 .21 .26 .50 .43 .30 -.29 .19 -.12 -.47 -.08 -.05 .59 .52 .50 -
18 Derogated
-.13 -.17 -.12 -.14 -.30 -.25 -.19 .22 .01 .01 .15 .08 .18 -.17 -.31 -.25 -.23 -
groups
19 Dangerous .31 .27 .08 .32 .04 .36 .17 -.18 -.30 .11 -.02 -.23 .06 .09 .21 .25 -.09 .11 -
 23

group
20 Dissident
-.14 -.13 -.15 -.16 -.20 -.19 -.09 .14 .05 -.03 .10 .12 .36 -.19 -.31 -.18 -.10 .43 .13 -
groups
14.6 27.3 24.2 17.5 10.8 10.3 14.7 15.6 30.8 37.4
M 15.77 15.45 14.33 36.15 30.97 33.45 29.61 36.67 36.55 19.31
6 5 9 4 5 9 6 0 0 7
SD 4.16 3.45 3.94 4.53 6.70 6.78 6.11 7.59 7.24 6.81 6.42 7.39 7.90 4.99 5.02 6.08 4.52 7.93 7.40 9.39
.82( .80( .77( .74( .79(1 .77(1 .78(1 .71(1 .83(1 .81(1 .88( .88( .84( .76( .89( .83(1 .82(
α(n) .80(10) .67(9) .74(17)
9) 9) 9) 9) 0) 0) 0) 0) 0) 0) 5) 6) 7) 5) 7) 0) 9)
Note. All correlations above .15 are significant at p < .001, D statistic is in parentheses as a measure of profile distance with smaller value

indicating higher similarity profiles, n – number of items.

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Table 4

Incremental validity of sadism scales in prediction of attitudes towards social groups

Attitudes towards social groups

Derogated Dangerous Dissident

Step 1 Sex .07 .00 .19***

Age -.07 -.09* -.08

R2 .03** .04*** .06***

Step 2 Machiavellianism -.22*** -.25*** -.14*

Narcissism -.01 .06 .05

Psychopathy -.11 .38*** -.06

ΔR2 .08*** .15*** .03**

Step 3 SSIS -.01 .16** -.05

ΔR2 .00 .02*** .00

VAST Direct -.10* .17*** -.08

ΔR2 .01* .03*** .01

Vicarious -.02 -.04 -.06

ΔR2 .00 .00 .00

ASP .01 .18*** -.05

ΔR2 .00 .02*** .00

Note. In the third step each sadism measure was entered separately, *p < .05, **p < .01, ***p

< .001.
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Figure 1. Test information of sadism scales: SSIS, VAST (direct and vicarious sadism), and

ASP.

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