No mercy for victims: Exploring the link between dark personality traits, aggressive video game behavior, and severe traffic violations

This study investigates the relationship between dark personality traits, aggressive behavior in violent video games, and severe traffic violations among 200 driving offenders from Tehran, Iran, participating in a rehabilitation program. Participants engaged in a computerized shooting decision task, where their tendency to shoot unarmed targets (innocent victims), compared to armed targets (criminals), was used as an indicator of aggressive behavior toward innocent victims. Additionally, they completed self-report measures of narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism to evaluate the impact of Dark Tetrad personality traits on their behavior. Bivariate analyses revealed associations between Dark Tetrad personality traits and aggressive behavior in the video game with serious traffic offenses. Multivariate analyses identified Machiavellianism, sadism, and aggressive behavior in video games as significant predictors of severe traffic offenses. The results suggest that dark personality traits and aggressive behavior in video games may aid in better identifying road traffic offenders with the most severe violations. Potential implications for preventing repeated traffic offenses by tailoring rehabilitation programs are discussed.