Abstract:

The aim of this research is to examine the extent to which the Dark Triad (Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy) personality traits predicted the relational aggression levels of university students. The sample of the study comprised of 725 (457 female, 268 male) undergraduate students from diverse faculties of a state university in Turkey during the 2018-2019 academic year. “Personal Information Form”, “Relational Aggression Scale in Friendship Relations” and “Short Dark Triad Scale” were used in the study. Pearson correlation and multiple regression analysis were also used to analyze the data. The findings of the study indicated that Machiavellianism and psychopathy significantly predicted the relational aggression levels of university students. Similarly, it is observed that both Machiavellianism and psychopathy are significant predictors of the exclusion factor of relational aggression among university students. The results also revealed that only Machiavellianism predicted the manipulation factor of relational aggression while psychopathy predicted alone the gossip factor of relational aggression among university students. Nevertheless, narcissism did not seem to be a significant predictor of relational aggression levels of university students. The implications of this research were considered and some recommendations were made for practice.

Keywords: