Dark minds do not like animals: the Dark Tetrad traits as predictors of relations with non-human animals

Speciesism designates a belief that humans should be treated as morally superior to other animals. This belief entails disregarding non-human animals’ sentience and ability to suffer. Speciesism has been related to a more general lack of empathy and antisocial personality traits. In this study, we sought to investigate the relationship between the Dark Tetrad traits (Narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and sadism) and attitudes toward non-human animals, as well as whether this relationship is mediated by empathy and the general social/ideological attitudes - social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism. In study 1 (N = 369), participants were asked about their speciesism, frequency of meat consumption, and prosocial intentions toward animals. Controlling for age, sex, and educational level, speciesism was predicted by psychopathy and sadism. Prosocial intentions toward animals were also negatively predicted by psychopathy, while meat consumption was related to Machiavellianism only marginally. In Study 2 (N = 234), we further investigated whether affective, cognitive, and motivational empathy and general social attitudes mediated the relationship between psychopathy and sadism with speciesism. Psychopathy proved the most important distal predictor, while social dominance orientation fully mediated this link. All aspects of empathy had both direct and indirect effects on speciesism via social dominance orientation. The findings suggest that the Dark Tetrad of personality has systematic ties to attitudes toward animals. However, the basic social/ideological attitudes are the more proximal predictors. These findings are also relevant to the literature on the link between violence toward animals and violence toward humans.