Psychometric properties of the Serbian version of mental toughness Inventory and Dark Triad Dirty Dozen in police students

Abstract

Police work is a stressful occupation, where officers are exposed to chronic and intense stressors. When it comes to understanding and predicting reaction to prolonged stress, it has been shown that there is more to personality than what can be captured by the most widespread personality models. Adding Mental Toughness as the capacity to tolerate and overcome stress at work, as well as the Dark Triad as a tendency for malevolent behaviour, to the traditional model of assessing the personality of a police officer can improve the prediction of important outcomes. The aim of this paper was to examine the psychometric properties of the Serbian translations for the Mental Toughness Inventory (MTI) and the Dark Triad Dirty Dozen (DTDD) in a population of police students. The research was conducted on a sample of 92 students in their first and second years at the University of Criminal Investigation and Police Studies. Considering the specificity of the sample, both instruments showed good reliability (Cronbach's Alpha Based on Standardized Item a = 0.81 for MTI and a = 0.84 for DDTD); factor structure was confirmed for the MTI (ch² = 51.5, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.864) and DTDD (ch² = 105, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.886) as well as convergent (r=-.384, p < 0.01 between Mental toughness, and Machiavellianism). Although deviations from the normal distribution were obtained, having in mind the rigor of psychological and physical selection into the Police University, the obtained psychometric properties of the MTI and DTDD were acceptable and we recommend the instruments for further usage.

Psychometric Properties of Online Versions of Empathy And Dark Triad Personality Traits Questionnaires In Basketball Players

“…According to reliability parameters (Table 2) DTDD shoved excellent properties. This finding is in line with finding of previous validation studies [24], and more over online version shoved greater reliability than paper version in some earlier studies [25]. On the other hand, IRI was quite questionable when it comes to reliability.…”

“…Results of correlation analyses (Table 3) are also in line with results of previous studies [28,5,26,25,27]. Having in mind direction, intensity, and number of obtained correlations it can be easily claimed that construct validity of online versions of all three instruments in population of basketball players is confirmed.…”

Psychometric Properties of Online Versions of Mental Toughness Questionnaires in Basketball Players

“…Never the less, if taken into account the relationship between the size of Cronbach's alpha scores and the number of scales that make up one score, it can be clearly observed that all three instruments behave in a good way according to this parameter. Also, the obtained reliability of the online version of the questionnaire is quite similar to that obtained in the validation studies of the paper versions [18,19,9,20,21,22].…”

“…In the end, this study for the subject of analysis had the psychometric properties of online versions of already validated instruments, which are in widely used in sports and research practice. Taking everything into account, the online tests showed at least the same psychometric characteristics as the paper versions [6,9,18,22,19,21,20].…”