Destroying things for pleasure: On the relation of sadism and vandalism

Abstract

Vandalism, the intentional act to destruct or to deface a property not one's own, has received surprisingly little attention in psychological research so far. The present contribution addresses this gap and applies a basic personality perspective to vandalism. Here, we focused on one specific manifestation of vandalism, that is, destroying things for pleasure. In the present study (N = 221), we assessed individual differences in sadism, the dark triad of psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism as well as the HEXACO personality model. Multiple regression analyses revealed that individual differences in sadism predict vandalistic acts that are executed for pleasure. This relation was shown to be independent of the dark triad and the HEXACO dimensions. As such, the present contribution suggests that sadistic orientations might play a role in vandalistic acts that are executed for pleasure. Implications for research on sadism and vandalism are discussed.