The relationship between the dark triad and guilt proneness: the mediating role of basic psychological needs satisfaction

Objective To explore the relationship between the dark triad, basic psychological needs satisfaction and guilty proneness. Methods Totally 595 college students were randomly selected from Zhengzhou University.They were tested with the dirty dozen(DD), the balanced measure of psychological needs scale(BMPN) and guilt-proneness-5(GP-5). SPSS 22.0 and AMOS 21.0 were used for data analysis, including descriptive analysis, correlation analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Bootstrap measure was used for mediating effect test. Results (1)The correlation analysis showed that the dark triad (29(21, 37)), Machiavellianism (4(4, 8)) and psychopathy(5(4, 9)) were negatively correlated with guilty proneness (20(16, 23)), and the correlation coefficients were -0.10, -0.22 and -0.18 respectively(all P 0.01). The satisfaction of basic psychological needs (56(54, 60)) was positively correlated with guilty proneness (r=0.31, P<0.01). (2)The relationship between the dark triad and guilty proneness was partially mediated by basic psychological needs satisfaction, and the mediating effect accounted for 62.96%. Conclusion The dark triad influences guilty proneness through basic psychological needs satisfaction.