Cross-validation of the Light Triad Personality Traits Model

AbstractLight personality traits is a new formulation of social orientation and behaviors that include empathy, compassion, and altruism. This study aimed to introduce and study the psychometric properties of the Persian version of the Light Triad Scale. For this purpose, 400 undergraduate students were selected by cluster sampling and evaluated by Light Triad Scale and Dirty Dozen Scale. The sample was split into two groups for exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Exploratory factor analysis showed that the three factors of empathy, compassion, and altruism can be extracted and explain a total of 58% of the variance of scores. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the factor of light personality traits in the higher-order is composed by three lower-order factors of empathy, compassion, and altruism and the model has good fitness. The homogeneity coefficient of items was obtained by calculating Cronbach's alpha for the whole scale of 0.92 and the components of empathy, compassion, and altruism were 0.88, 0.88, and 0.87, respectively. Examining the relationship between light personality traits and the three traits of Machiavellianism, psychopathy and narcissism showed a significant negative relationship between them. There were also differences between men and women in the traits of empathy, compassion, and altruism. The light triad personality model consists of three low-order factors: empathy, compassion, and altruism, and can be used as an appropriate tool to assess clear personality traits.