Aggression as a trait: the Dark Tetrad alternative

Aggression is often construed as a unitary trait fully captured by the Buss–Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ). Our review of the literature questions that assumption in several respects. Instead of a top-down approach, we argue for a bottom-up conception based on the Dark Tetrad of personality, that is, narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism. We highlight research showing that each member of the tetrad responds to different...