4 Keys to Understanding Pathological Antagonism

It is unpleasant to be around people who are selfish, mean, and cynical, especially when they take advantage of you. When these personality traits reach extremes, they can become manifest in a personality disorder, creating a lifelong pattern of maladaptive behavior and strained relationships with others. The psychiatric diagnosis of personality disorders in the DSM-5-TR classifies personality disorders into distinct categories, but the so-called “alternative model” of personality disorders instead relies on a set of continuous rating criteria on the seven traits of attention-seeking, callousness, deceitfulness, grandiosity, hostility, manipulativeness, and suspiciousness.

According to the University of Koblenz-Landau’s David Scholz and colleagues (2022), it's possible that all of these traits reflect the quality of “antagonism,” or being "at odds" with everyone else. Traditionally seen as low "agreeableness," the German authors suggest that antagonism in the pathological sense is much more than just being a "not-nice" person. Their model proposes a 4-part approach to understanding the psychological makeup of a person whose high levels of antagonism make them ideal candidates for a personality disorder diagnosis.

Unpacking Antagonism’s A’s, B’s, C’s, and D’s

Antagonism’s four parts, as the German authors suggest, fit into an A-B-C-D, which they elaborate on as follows:

• A: Affect. People low on agreeableness as defined in the Five-Factor Model of personality tend to have little empathy or concern for other people. However, their inner feelings may not translate into actions. They might sneer internally but keep their disdain for others to themselves.
• B: Behavior. Things get more interesting when you add the "B" or behavior to the equation. Now, this disdainful person turns that cold-heartedness into actions that can ruin someone else's life. The highly antagonistic person, in seeking to manipulate and destroy others, uses any and all tools at their disposal, from lying even to physical harm.
• C: Cognition. The German team next proposes that pathologically antagonistic people have a distorted view of humanity built on a foundation of suspiciousness and paranoia, a perspective that falls into the category of "social" cognition, or ways to think about other people. They might even look at your attempts to help them solve a problem as just a way for you to show how much smarter you are.
• D: Dark. In testing their theoretical model of antagonism, Scholz et al. transform "D", or the "dark" personality trait, into a quality that may supersede A, B, and C. Perhaps all of those seven personality disorder traits are just manifestations of D, they suggest, which itself is a more inclusive factor than even all of the other three put together. As the authors propose, "D is conceptualized as the underlying disposition from which all aversive traits arise as specific, flavored manifestations."

Testing the New Approach to Antagonism

After laying out their theoretical model, the German research team then went on to test its fit to the data based on questionnaires of each of its components that they administered to a sample of 3,400 adults ranging from 18 to 74 tested two times, about one month apart. Scores on measures of A, B, C, and D were used to predict those seven DSM-based personality traits to see which combination of measures would have the greatest statistical weight.

Here are sample items from each of the seven scales used in the prediction formula:

Callousness: “I don’t care about other people’s problems.”

Hostility: “I have a very short temper.”

Manipulativeness: “Sweet-talking others helps me get what I want.”

Deceitfulness: “I’ll stretch the truth if it’s to my advantage.”

Attention seeking: “I like to draw attention to myself.”

Grandiosity: “I’m better than almost everyone else.”

Suspiciousness: “Plenty of people are out to get me.”

Turning to the findings, the study's predictions were upheld. Scores at the first test on the separate measures of A, B, and C, predicted the seven DSM-5-TR traits, but D alone went above and beyond these individual components in the statistical modeling equation. As the authors concluded, antagonistic people aren't just low on agreeableness, they have their own unique blend of affect, behavior, and cognition along with high levels of pure aversiveness. Indeed, it was D itself that “offered the most balanced representation of the seven antagonistic traits under scrutiny” (p. 966).

The Take-Home Message

As you were reading through the description of the seven DSM-5-TR traits, perhaps you thought about the qualities of someone you know who would come out high on each one. Even if you’re lucky enough not to have a person like this in your life, you can surely think of a fictional character or a notorious criminal highlighted in a reality show or docudrama that fits the bill. In so doing, it may be hard for you to separate the person’s affect from their actions or even their distorted view of the world. Indeed, the German findings suggest this holistic interpretation is warranted.

Some of these distinctions from the study itself may seem overly nuanced to you and best reserved for personality psychologists or clinicians. However, the value in understanding pathological antagonism as a multifaceted component is that it can give you greater ammunition the next time you’re trying to avoid being drawn in by a pathologically antagonistic person. Be on the watch not only for the short fuse of high hostility, but also the bending of the truth (deceitfulness) and lack of trust (suspiciousness) that are just as dangerous.

To sum up, when antagonism reaches pathological levels, it’s a quality you want to steer clear of in the people you interact with. By knowing what to look for, you’ll be better able to find fulfillment with the people whose trust is well-deserved.

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