The Truth About Antagonism

It is a set of interpersonally-relevant traits related to how you think about, view, and interact with others in your social world. Antagonistic individuals tend to be self-centered, entitled, argumentative, and simply difficult to get along with. These individuals can be rude and intrusive, have little concern for how their behaviors affect others and view the world in competitive rather than communal ways.

Some of our work suggests that people understand quite well who is antagonistic and that the lay public has a name for them…” assholes” (Hyatt et al., 2019; Sharpe et al., 2022). When people were asked to describe individuals who they felt were “assholes,” antagonistic traits were most commonly used (e.g., dishonest, argumentative, callous, grandiose). Similarly, individuals who describe themselves as an asshole also endorsed being antagonistic. In a separate study, we found that behaviors reported by individuals describing an asshole in their lives were most strongly categorized as being relevant to Agreeableness-Antagonism as compared to any of the other big five traits. We coded these behaviors into several basic categories, including manipulation, rudeness, aggression, bigotry, combativeness, etc. (https://online.ucpress.edu/collabra/article/8/1/32552/120248/They-Are-Such-an-Asshole-Describing-the-Targets-of). A plethora of self and informant related personality scales are available as well – some for pay and some that are freely available – that can be used for assessment purposes.

Hyatt, C. S., Maples-Keller, J. L., Sleep, C. E., Lynam, D. R., & Miller, J. D. (2019). The anatomy of an insult: Popular derogatory terms connote important differences in Agreeableness/Antagonism. Journal of Research in Personality, 78, 61-75.

Sharpe, B. M., Hyatt, C. S., Lynam, D. R., & Miller, J. D. (in press). “They are such an asshole”: Describing the targets of a common insult among English-speakers in the United States. Collabra: Psychology.

Where do we start?! Examples are aplenty – from outright lies regarding election outcomes, encouraging violence towards one’s opponents, cynicism about efforts to mitigate racism, bigotry, homophobia, climate change, etc. Examples abound regarding the salience of this important domain and the many micro and macro harms associated. Antagonism is the strongest correlate of antisocial, aggressive behavior, as well as psychiatric constructs like antisocial, psychopathic, and narcissistic personality disorder, so anywhere these behaviors are seen, antagonistic traits are likely to be found.

Antagonism is the low pole of the basic trait of Agreeableness from the big five personality models. These basic traits run from high (e.g., trust, straightforwardness, empathy) to low (e.g., cynicism, deceitfulness, callousness). Antagonism is the strongest of the “Big Five” traits in terms of correlating with the so-called Dark Triad (simultaneous study of psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism). Although there is some debate (Moshagen et al., 2018; https://darkfactor.org/; Book et al., 2015), we contend that Antagonism is the shared “core” that accounts for the overlap among these three constructs (e.g., Vize et al., 2020; 2021; https://psyarxiv.com/kf85p/; https://osf.io/f82kd).

Moshagen, M., Hilbig, B. E., & Zettler, I. (2018). The dark core of personality. Psychological Review, 125, 656-688.

Book, A., Visser, B. A., Blais, J., Hosker-Field, A., Methot-Jones, T., Gauthier, N. Y., ... & D'Agata, M. T. (2016). Unpacking more “evil”: What is at the core of the dark tetrad?. Personality and Individual Differences, 90, 269-272.

Vize, C., Collison, K. L., Miller, J. D., & Lynam, D. R. (2020). The “core” of the Dark Triad: A test of competing hypotheses. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 11, 91-99.

Vize, C. E., Miller, J.D., & Lynam, D.R. (2021). Examining the conceptual and empirical distinctiveness of agreeableness and “dark” personality items. Journal of Personality, 89, 594-612.

This is an area that requires a lot more work, to be honest. We know personality can and does change, in general, and can change as a result of psychotherapy and even as a result of volitional efforts, although agreeableness-antagonism has proven more difficult than some other domains like extraversion and neuroticism. Part of this may be the inherently interpersonal nature of this domain. Even if an antagonistic individual decides to change overnight, the individuals in their social world may continue to interact with that person in ways that may elicit antagonistic responses (e.g. the less antagonistic individual may be distrustful, curt, hostile to a person known to be antagonistic based on previous, unpleasant interactions). Second, antagonistic individuals identify some benefits, as well as costs, to these traits, which may make result in greater ambivalence towards change. Third, antagonistic individuals may simply care less about the harms done to others and even the consequences they experience. Ultimately, one likely has to have insight into the costs associated with one’s antagonism and the motivation to make changes.

Hudson, N. W., & Fraley, R. C. (2015). Volitional personality trait change: Can people choose to change their personality traits?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109, 490-507.

Roberts, B. W., Luo, J., Briley, D. A., Chow, P. I., Su, R., & Hill, P. L. (2017). A systematic review of personality trait change through intervention. Psychological Bulletin, 143, 117-141.

Sleep, C. E., Lynam, D. R., & Miller, J. D. (2022). Understanding individuals’ perceptions of desire for change, impairment, benefits, and barriers of change for pathological personality traits. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 13, 245-253.

I don’t know that there are any proven empirical facts about how to mitigate these difficulties, unfortunately. The first step is to simply recognize this fact (e.g., Uncle Bob is an overly argumentative person), decide how that impacts you (e.g., mild annoyance to anger to anxiety), and what your options are for limiting the degree and nature of future interactions. For instance, in my own work, I value and enjoy collaboration, so I tend to develop collaborations with those who share my values, interests, as well as my work and interpersonal style. In that way, I avoid working with humourless, domineering, or self-centered collaborators. Of course, not everyone has the ability to make those demarcations at work and especially at home, so these issues can be complex, thorny, and upsetting.

We know that externalizing behaviors (e.g., aggression, antisocial behavior) are substantially correlated with antagonism – in fact, multiple meta-analyses demonstrate the robustness of these relations (e.g., Miller & Lynam, 2001; Vize et al., 2019). However, we know less about whether these depend on certain contexts or other possible “moderators” like the presence of frustration, ego threat, or provocation. My guess is antagonistic individuals are more likely to act out in all situations and contexts but that certain contexts or factors may strengthen those proclivities (e.g., provocation; intoxication).

Miller, J. D., & Lynam, D. R. (2001). Structural models of personality and their relation to antisocial behavior: A meta-analysis. Criminology, 39, 765-798

Vize, C. E., Collison, K. L., Miller, J. D., & Lynam, D. R. (2019). Using Bayesian methods to update and expand the meta-analytic evidence of the Five-Factor Model’s relation to antisocial behavior. Clinical Psychology Review, 67, 61-77.