Brutismo, Arrogantismo y Malignismo: el modelo BAM de rasgos negativos inducido desde el lenguaje cotidiano

Abstract

El objetivo de esta investigación fue hallar un modelo de rasgos negativos de la personalidad a partir de la mentalidad de las personas comunes. Se realizó un primer estudio inductivo que logró generar una lista de características negativas personales desde esa mirada. El segundo estudio, realizado con otra muestra, halló un modelo factorial de tres variables latentes llamadas brutismo, arrogantismo y malignismo (BAM), que mostró un buen ajuste a los datos, y cuyo instrumento de medición de 22 ítems mostró consistencia interna mediante valores omega superiores a .80 para cada subescala. En el tercer estudio, realizado con otra muestra, se validó el nuevo modelo de rasgos negativos, que mostró asociaciones positivas con síntomas psicopatológicos y negativas con satisfacción con la vida. Además, se demostró que el modelo BAM es diferente de la Tríada Oscura de Personalidades. En conclusión, desarrollamos un nuevo modelo original, replicable e inductivamente derivado de rasgos negativos cardinales surgido de la mentalidad de las personas que predice de manera robusta síntomas psicopatológicos, rasgos oscuros y bienestar.Since the beginning of this century, there has been a renewed interest in positive and negative personality traits. In this vein, models have been developed based on theoretical or data-driven approaches. Consistently, research on negative traits has mainly focused on theoretical psychopathological clinical or subclinical aspects. In particular, two theory-based models have generated a number of studies: the Dark Triad of personalities and the DSM-5 personality trait model. However, no models have been developed using a fully data-driven inductive approach based on lexical data. Specifically, the lexical approach is based on the assumption that in order to judge other people, it is useful to determine quickly the extent to which people have certain general attributes in order to anticipate behaviours and social interactions. In this sense, if an attribute is important for social interactions and practices in the everyday world, people need to talk about it and therefore have a word to name it. In particular, the models developed under this lexical hypothesis do not consist of long lists of idiosyncratic attributes, but include a few important replicable basic factors that are linked to a few attributes. The aim of this research was to find a data-driven model of negative attributes from the layperson’s point of view. A lexical approach was adopted and three studies were conducted. The first inductive study aimed to generate a corpus of words in order to develop a list of negative attributes. A convenience sample of 894 participants was used. From the participants’ responses, a list of 6907 items was extracted, corresponding to 1171 terms with different frequencies. After refining the list, 165 items were selected based on frequency and other criteria. These items were employed in the subsequent step. The second study aimed at (a) finding a reasonably clean and simple model of the cardinal negative traits factors of individuals from the laypersons’ point of view and (b) developing its measurement instrument. We used a two-phase method. The aim of the first phase was to select factors that were clearly defined by the result of an exploratory factor analysis. The sample consisted of 636 participants. We selected factors according to the following criteria: (a) there should be at least 4 items per factor and all items should have at least fair item-to-factor loadings, and (b) at least one item should have very good item-to-factor loadings. Three factors met these criteria. As a result, 113 items were maintained. Phase two aimed to develop a refined three-factor model with the following characteristics: small number of items per factor (but not less than four), good fit to the data, and high reliability per factor (> .80). There were 341 participants in the sample 2, which was used for the model refinement phase. As a result of iterative steps, we found the three-factor model with fewer items showed a good fit to the data. The lexical data-driven inductively derived model of negative individual psychological attributes was called BAM. The model consists of three latent variables representing the cardinal negative constructs from the laypeople’s mindset: brutism, arrogantism and malignism. We also developed a 22-item measurement instrument called the BAM Inventory (BAMI), which showed an omega reliability per subscale greater than 0.80. In the third study we tested the new model validity of using a sample of 714 participants. The BAM model showed positive associative relationships with psychopathological symptoms and negative relationships with life satisfaction, as well as discriminant validity with the Dark Triad of personalities. We conclude that the new BAM model differs from the Dark Triad model and is consistently associated with psychopathological aspects of individuals and well-being.