The Role of Emotional Schemas and Temperament and Character in Shaping the Dark Tetrad Personality Traits

The present research aimed to predict the dark tetrad personality traits based on emotional schemas and temperament and character in students. This study was a cross-sectional type of correlation. The research population was the students of the Islamic Azad University of Urmia branch in the academic years of 2019-20 with a number of 17020 people, which the sample size based on Krejcie and Morgan table estimated 375 people who were selected by multi-stage cluster sampling method. Research data were collected by the emotional schemas scale II (ESS-II; Leahy, 2012), temperament and character questionnaire (TCQ; Cloninger, 1994), and dark tetrad personality traits scale (DTPTS; Plouffe et al., 2017) and analyzed by multiple regression with entering model method in SPSS software version 22. The findings showed that the schemas of lack of understanding, guilt, simplification, lack of control, numbness, rejection, rumination and shame and temperaments of innovations, dependent reward, and perseverance had a positive and significant relationship with dark tetrad personality traits in students and the schemas of the lake of evaluation, rationality and weak expression and characters of cooperation, self-direction and self-transgression had a negative and significant relationship with their dark tetrad personality traits (P<0.01). Also, emotional schemas and temperament, and character significantly could explain 24.6 percent of changes in dark tetrad personality traits in students (P<0.001). According to the results of the present research, reducing the dark tetrad personality traits in students can provide the basis for modifying the related emotional schemas and temperament, and character.