AMORALISM SCALE (BRIEF ENGLISH VERSION)
Please rate your degree of agreement with each item
by choosing a number from 1 to 5. As a guide, use the
values (1) totally disagree ; (2) mostly disagree ; (3) neutral or
undecided ; (4) mostly agree or (5) totally agree .
1.I could not stand a life of discipline.
2.I always take my duties seriously. (R)
3.When I have a job to do, I do it right away. (R)
4.A smart person trusts no one.
5.A person should use all means to get an advantage /C0
but make sure that others do not find out.
6.There is little value in trying to get revenge. (R)
7.As long as I’m enjoying myself, I don’t care how
people around me feel.
8.Doing good deeds brings joy to the heart.
9.Why should I care about the problems of other
people, when no one cares about me?
10.I have excellent self-control. (R)
11.It is difficult to hold me back.
12.Rules kill one’s will to live.
13.At the end of the day, good people get the most out
of life. (R)14.There is much more good in this world than evil (R)
15.I have never regretted getting even with someone.
16.It is hard for me to see someone suffering. (R)
17.I recognize only my own needs and am driven only
by my own desires.
18.Doing humanitarian work makes more sense than
anything. (R)
Notes : Subscale scoring: Lascivia 5mean of items 1, 2,
3, 10, 11, 12; Frustralia 5mean of items 4, 5, 6, 13, 14,
15; Crudelia 5mean of items 7, 8, 9, 16, 17, 18.
The general amoralism score is calculated as mean
value of the three subscales.
The longer versions of AMRL-9 allow for scoring of
facets within each subscale. Longer versions along
with norms and additional information can be
obtained upon request from Goran Kne ˇzevi´c (email:
gknezevi@f.bg.ac.rs).
Reverse scored item (R)
Reproduced with permission.
FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
The diversity of variables included in this chapter confirms that socially aversive personalities come in many
varieties. Nonetheless, our review is unlikely to be exhaustive. At the same time, some of these measures overlap
sufficiently to imply common features. Those two issues lead us to recommend a number of directions for future
research.
Interpretation of Overlap
Researchers devoted to studying only one dark personality may discover, perhaps too late, that some of its
most fascinating correlates are, in fact, attributable to one of the other personalities covered here. In the case of
the Dark Triad, multivariate inventories are already available to facilitate simultaneous comparisons. Hence their
unique contributions to predicting the same criterion variables can easily be evaluated. The common component
of the triad appears to have psychological significance, but its interpretation remains open to debate ( Giammarco
et al., 2013; Jakobwitz & Egan, 2006; Jonason et al., 2011; Jones & Figueredo, 2013; Lee & Ashton, 2005 ). The inves-
tigation of behavioral and physiological mediators will be helpful. Further work is needed on how dark personal-
ities map onto broad trait measures of aggression ( Buss & Perry, 1992 ) and their distinctive triggers ( Lawrence,
2006 ).
Aversive Alternatives
Certainly, there are other ways of being socially aversive, some of which were reviewed by Kowalski
(2001) . Candidates include antisocial identity ( Walters, 2002 ), and status-driven risk-taking ( Visser et al., in
press ). Virtually polar opposites are personalities with an unhealthy deficiency in agency, that is, excessive passiv-
ity. Being socially boring, for example, is aversive in a qualitatively different way; so are indecisiveness and
dependency. In that respect, the dark personalities measured in this chapter have no problem: narcissists,
Machiavellians, psychopaths, and sadists are all engaging characters. A full taxonomy would include both broad
categories.589 FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS
V. VICES AND VIRTUES