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Most evidence on Dark Triad differences by sex and sexual orientation comes from WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) samples, and many studies skip tests of measurement equivalence, limiting the interpretability of group mean differences. To address this gap in Brazil, we evaluated the structure and invariance of the Dark Triad Dirty Dozen (DTDD) and examined sex- and sexual-orientation differences in a large online sample ( N = 2073; ages 18–80). Confirmatory factor analyses supported the expected three-factor model (Narcissism, Machiavellianism, Psychopathy). Multigroup CFAs supported configural, metric, scalar, and strict invariance across both sex and sexual-orientation groups, enabling mean comparisons. Factorial ANOVAs revealed trait-specific stratification. Narcissism and Psychopathy showed main effects of sex and sexual orientation and significant Sex × Orientation interactions, indicating that sex differences varied across orientation strata. Machiavellianism differed by sexual orientation but showed no sex main effect and no interaction. Effects were small but consistent. Bisexual women tended to score higher across traits, whereas heterosexual women anchored the lower end. These findings extend Dark Triad research beyond WEIRD settings, show that the DTDD performs comparably across groups in Brazil, and suggest that orientation-linked differences are subgroup- and trait-dependent, potentially reflecting gendered norms, mating-strategy calibration, and socioecological constraints. • First Brazilian test of DTDD invariance across sex and sexual orientation. • DTDD is strict-invariant: group mean differences are valid to compare. • Narcissism no sex effect and no interaction. • Bisexual women score highest overall; heterosexual women the lowest.
Santos et al. (Fri,) studied this question.