Developing and Testing a Scale to Measure Need for Drama

I fear this will discriminate against women. It also has the potential for racism.

Highlights

Developed Need for Drama scale

Measures interpersonal manipulation, impulsive outspokenness, perceived victimhood.

Strong associations with dark triad, neuroticism, low conscientiousness, gossip.

Need for Drama scale has equal factor loadings between men and women.

Useful for organizational and social research on maladaptive personality traits.

Abstract: We developed and tested a novel scale to measure Need for Drama (NFD), a compound maladaptive personality trait in which people impulsively manipulate others from a position of perceived victimhood. We confirmed a three factor model of NFD consisting of interpersonal manipulation, impulsive outspokenness, and persistent perceived victimhood factors using Mechanical Turk and college student samples. The pattern of correlations between the NFD factors, dark-triad, attitudes toward gossip, and locus of control, suggest that NFD individuals can be characterized as manipulative, gossipy, and reactive. Correlations to Big-5 personality traits indicate NFD individuals are neurotic, lack conscientiousness, and are slightly more disagreeable. Tests of measurement invariance established that the factor structure and factor loadings of NFD are equivalent between men and women. Organizational, social, and personality researchers may find the NFD measure useful as a predictor of counterproductive workplace behaviors and other maladaptive interpersonal interactions. Future directions and limitations are discussed.

About Luke Ford

I've written five books (see Amazon.com). My work has been covered in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and on 60 Minutes. I teach Alexander Technique in Beverly Hills (Alexander90210.com).
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