Dark Tetrad Test: See Your Narcissism, Machiavellianism, Psychopathy and Sadism Bars

How the dark tetrad extends the dark triad

The dark triad was introduced by Delroy Paulhus and Kevin Williams in 2002 as a way of studying three socially aversive traits together: narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. They overlap, because all three involve a willingness to put yourself first at someone else's expense, but they are not the same. Narcissism runs on grandiosity and the need for admiration. Machiavellianism runs on strategy, cynicism and long-game manipulation. Psychopathy runs on impulsivity, thrill-seeking and a thin layer of remorse.

The fourth trait arrived in 2013, when Erin Buckels, Daniel Jones and Delroy Paulhus showed in two behavioral studies that everyday sadism predicted lab cruelty over and above the three triad traits. That incremental prediction is the whole argument for a fourth member: sadism was not simply psychopathy under another name, so the tetrad has been the standard framing since. Our Everyday Sadism Test covers what those studies actually asked people to do and what the trait looks like day to day. Paulhus and colleagues later built the Short Dark Tetrad (SD4), a 28-item research questionnaire with seven items per trait, published in 2021.

This page uses the same four-trait structure and the same seven-per-trait balance, but the statements are our own. The SD4 is a research instrument and we name it rather than copy it. Our result shows the relative strength of the four traits in your answers; it does not place you on the research instrument's norms.

A trait tendency is not a disorder

Every trait in this test exists on a continuum across the whole population. Most people have a little of each: a flash of grandiosity after a win, a strategic silence in a negotiation, a careless moment, a laugh at a rival's stumble. A trait score describes where you sit on that continuum compared with your other three scores. It does not say whether a clinician would recognize a disorder, and it cannot.

The disorders that people associate with these traits, narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder, are diagnosed only when a pattern is pervasive, inflexible, present across many settings and causing significant distress or impairment, and only by a licensed clinician using a structured assessment. Sadistic personality disorder was a proposed category in an appendix of the DSM-III-R in 1987 and was dropped in 1994; it is not a current diagnosis. Everyday sadism, as this test uses the term, is a personality trait about ordinary cruelty, not a sexual interest and not a clinical category.

So a high bar here means: you endorsed many statements about this trait, more than you did about the other three. It is a prompt to look at where that pattern shows up and what it costs you, not a diagnosis. If you want each trait on its own, with its own scale and bands, the Narcissism Test, Machiavellianism Test and Psychopathy Test pages do that, and Everyday Sadism Test covers the fourth.

Reading your four bars together

The bars show the percentage of the maximum you reached on each trait. The leading bar is the one to read first, but the pattern across all four says more. Narcissism and Machiavellianism together describe someone who wants status and is strategic about getting it. Psychopathy and sadism together describe a more impulsive, hostile style where hurting people is not always a means to an end. High on everything points at the shared core the dark factor research describes, which Dark Core Personality Test (D-Factor) measures directly. Low on everything is the most common pattern and needs no action.

Two cautions. First, these questionnaires are easy to answer strategically, so your profile is only as honest as your answers. Second, a profile is relative: if all four bars are low, the leading one still shows as leading. Read the percentages, not just the ranking. If you want the opposite side of the picture, the Light Triad Test scores the everyday good you also carry, and most people have far more of that.

What to do with a high bar

If your leading trait came in high and matches what people close to you have said, the most useful response is specific. Narcissism: practice taking an interest in someone else's story without steering it back to yours, and notice how criticism lands in your body before you respond. Machiavellianism: pick one relationship and try being straightforwardly honest in it for a month. Psychopathy: work on the gap between impulse and action, which is where most of the damage happens. Everyday sadism: notice the moment you enjoy someone's discomfort and ask what else you are feeling right then, because it is usually anger or envy.

If the pattern is costing you relationships, jobs or your own peace, a therapist who works with personality patterns can help, and the work is less about labels than about the specific habits that keep repeating. If anything here has left you feeling bad about yourself, that reaction is worth something: it is the conscience the traits are supposed to override, and it is a good foundation to build on.

Methodology & sources

This is an original educational profile built on the dark tetrad model, which adds everyday sadism (Buckels, Jones and Paulhus, 2013) to the dark triad of narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy (Paulhus and Williams, 2002). The Short Dark Tetrad (SD4; Paulhus, Buckels, Trapnell and Jones, 2021) is the research instrument for this model; this page names it and does not reproduce its items. Our 28 statements are our own writing, seven for each trait, each rated on a five-point agreement scale scored 0 to 4. The engine totals each trait, shows all four as bars, and names the highest as your leading trait. When nothing is endorsed, all four tie, or the top two tie, it says so instead of forcing a result.

The four groupings follow the tetrad model, but they are not validated subscales and no normative sample underlies them; the bars show your relative pattern, not a comparison with other people. Self-reports of socially undesirable traits can be shaped by how a person wants to appear. This test screens for education and self-reflection only. It cannot identify narcissistic, antisocial or any other personality disorder, and nothing here replaces assessment by a licensed clinician.

Reviewed by Michael Callans, MSW
Reviewed to keep the trait-versus-disorder distinction clear throughout, to keep the sadism dimension free of sexual content, and to end every leading-trait reading with a concrete next step rather than a label. Last reviewed October 5, 2026.

References

1. Buckels EE, Jones DN, Paulhus DL. Behavioral confirmation of everyday sadism. Psychological Science. 2013;24(11):2201-2209. doi.org/10.1177/0956797613490749
2. Paulhus DL, Buckels EE, Trapnell PD, Jones DN. Screening for dark personalities: The Short Dark Tetrad (SD4). European Journal of Psychological Assessment. 2021;37(3):208-222. doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000602
3. Paulhus DL, Williams KM. The Dark Triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Journal of Research in Personality. 2002;36(6):556-563. doi.org/10.1016/S0092-6566(02)00505-6
4. Paulhus DL. Toward a taxonomy of dark personalities. Current Directions in Psychological Science. 2014;23(6):421-426. doi.org/10.1177/0963721414547737
5. Jones DN, Paulhus DL. Introducing the Short Dark Triad (SD3): A brief measure of dark personality traits. Assessment. 2014;21(1):28-41. doi.org/10.1177/1073191113514105

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