Dark personalities - dark relationships? An investigation of the relation between the Dark Tetrad and attachment styles

The present study investigated the relation between the Dark Tetrad and avoidant and anxious attachment styles (N = 438). Further, it was explored how bivariate relations change when the overlap between the dark traits, also reflecting their common core, was controlled for (n = 276). Results revealed positive associations between Machiavellianism, psychopathy, sadism, and both attachment styles, whereas grandiose narcissism was found to be negatively correlated with anxious attachment. By means of multiple regression analyses specific overlap was found between both attachment styles and Machiavellianism and grandiose narcissism. Sadism only had specific overlap with avoidant and psychopathy with anxious attachment. Overall, the Dark Tetrad explained about 20% of the variance in each attachment style. Findings point out that grandiose narcissism diverges from the other traits in terms of its relations with attachment styles. Additionally, the common core as well as unique variance proportions of the Dark Tetrad relate to attachment styles.