Prediction of Academic Self-Efficacy based on the Dark Triad Personality (i.e., Machiavellianism, Narcissism, and Psychopathy) and Spiritual Well-being in Students

Self-efficacy and Believe in self can play an effective role in studentschr('39') academic achievement. The aim of this study was to predict academic self-efficacy based on the characteristics of dark personality and spiritual well-being.

A cross-sectional design was used for this study. This study was performed in the female student population in the dormitories of the Qazvin University of Medical Sciences in the academic year of 2017-18 (N=587). 300 people were selected random sampling method for inclusion in the study. To collect data, of  College Academic Self-Efficacy Scale, The Dark Triad Dirty Dozen and Spiritual Well-being Scale were used. Inferential analysis of data was done using Pearson correlation and Regression tests in SPSS-24 software.

The results showed that there was a significant and negative relationship between antisocial personality traits (r=-0.254, P<0.001) and Machiavelli (r=-0.138, P<0.05) with academic self-efficacy in students. However, there was no significant correlation between narcissistic personality trait and academic self-efficacy. Other results showed that academic self-efficacy had a positive and significant relationship with spiritual well-being (r=-0.291, P<0.001). The results of regression analysis showed that 0.14 of variance of academic self-efficacy can be explained based on spiritual well-being, dark personality trait and psychopathy personality trait (R2 =0.144, R=0.379, F= 24.96).

This study showed that Machiavellian and sociological traits with negative role and spiritual well-being have a positive effect on self-efficacy.