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PERSONALITY
The A-B-C-D’s of Pathological Antagonism
New research breaks
pathological narcissism into 4 basic parts.
Posted January 21, 2023
Reviewed by Kaja Perina
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KEY POINTS
People high in antagonism are not only unpleasant to be around, but in the extreme, may have a personality disorder.
New research breaks this general quality down into its 4 parts, which are abbreviated as A, B, C, and D.
The findings show that antagonism isn't simply low agreeableness, but its own brand of maliciousness.
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.
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According to 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 to even physical harm.
C: Cognition
The German team next propose 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 look even at your attempts to help them solve a problem as just a way for you to show how much smarter you are.
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