The Handbook of Antagonism

Conceptualizations, Assessment, Consequences, and Treatment of the Low End of Agreeableness

Joshua W. Miller, Donald Lynam

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780128146286
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The Handbook of Antagonism: Conceptualizations, Assessment, Consequences, and Treatment of the Low End of Agreeableness looks at the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of antagonism, highlighting the consequences of the trait, its role in a number of problem behaviors and psychiatric disorders, and how it exerts itself on externalizing behaviors. Covering the biological and evolutionary roots of antagonism, the book provides clinical insight on assessment strategies, while also outlining a number of treatment techniques, including motivational interviewing, cognitive behavioral therapy, interpersonal psychology and psychodynamic treatment approaches.

In addition, the book explores the development of antagonism across childhood and adolescence, discussing the societal consequences of the trait, as well as its role in a number of problem behaviors, such as aggression, violence, crime and substance use.

• Provides an overview on the development, assessment and treatment of antagonism
• Looks at antagonism's role in work, romantic relationships and other domains
• Outlines self-report and non-self-report assessment approaches
• Studies the links between antagonism, psychopathy, narcissism and antisocial personality
• Approaches antagonism from a dimensional trait model
• Analyzes the role antagonism plays in several prominent psychiatric disorders

1

On the ubiquity and importance of antagonism

Donald R. Lynam^⁎; Joshua D. Miller^{† ⁎} Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, United States
^† Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, United States

Abstract

Antagonism, defined here as the low pole of trait Agreeableness, references traits related to immorality, combativeness, grandiosity, callousness, and distrustfulness. It is a robust correlate of externalizing behaviors such as antisocial behavior, aggression, and substance use; in many cases, it is by far the strongest correlate of these behaviors among the traits that make up the five-factor model of personality. It similarly represents the core of many psychopathological constructs that are of great interest to the public and researchers alike (e.g., psychopathy, antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders) due to their relations with externalizing behaviors. As Neuroticism is core to understanding the intense distress and suffering that comes with internalizing disorders, Antagonism is core to understanding the impairment and suffering (to the individual and society at large) that comes with externalizing disorders.

Keywords

Antisocial behavior; Aggression; Personality disorders; Psychopathy; Narcissism

What is antagonism?

Antagonism can be defined in many ways. Most minimally, Antagonism, in this chapter and throughout this book, is conceptualized as one end of a bipolar personality domain dealing with an orientation toward others that runs from Antagonistic to Agreeable. Slightly less minimally, we can define this domain extensionally, through more basic trait terms that comprise Antagonism. Crowe, Lynam, and Miller (2018; see chap. 4) recently examined the structure of Antagonism/Agreeableness among personality inventories designed to capture this domain. The authors administered 131 items from 22 scales to a large sample of participants (N = 1205) recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) website. After deleting redundant items, the authors conducted a bass-ackward analysis (Goldberg, 2006) which allows one to examine the factor emergence of the domain, from a single factor to increasingly more specific factors. An optimal five-factor structure was identified through this procedure. Accordingly, the Antagonism/Agreeableness dimension can be said to include these more basic bipolar traits: callousness versus compassion, immorality versus morality, distrust versus trust, combativeness versus affability, and arrogance versus modesty. Table 1 includes these bipolar dimensions as well as traits describing both the Antagonistic and Agreeable poles.

Table 1

Trait descriptors of the poles of the Antagonism-Agreeableness continuum

Facet	Antagonism	Agreeableness
Callousness vs compassion	Exploitative Callous Ruthless	Altruistic Empathic Tender-minded
Immorality vs morality	Manipulative Deceptive Cunning	Confiding Honest Straightforward
Distrust vs trust	Skeptical Suspicious Cynical	Trusting Naïve Gullible
Combativeness vs affability	Oppositional Aggressive Quarrelsome	Cooperative Polite Docile
Arrogance vs modesty	Boastful Egocentric Self-centered	Humble Unassuming Self-effacing

More broadly, this domain can be characterized as individual differences in the motivation to maintain positive social relations with others; as such, Antagonism/Agreeableness is firmly grounded in an interpersonal context (Graziano & Eisenberg, 1997; Graziano & Tobin, 2017). Antagonistic individuals place less value on interpersonal harmony, being more likely to sacrifice interpersonal harmony for other goals. Agreeable individuals, on the other hand, are likely to be motivated to maintain harmonious relations across many interpersonal contexts, whether it be with a romantic partner or an acquaintance. This domain also has theoretical links to behaviors that have figured prominently in human evolutionary history, such as altruism and social cooperation (Axelrod, 1984; Brown & Brown, 2006; Riolo, Cohen, & Axelrod, 2001). Indeed, the consistent cross-cultural emergence of an Antagonism/Agreeableness domain using natural language approaches (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1992; Heaven, Connors, & Stones, 1994) suggests that Antagonism-related traits describe fundamental ways in which human beings think, feel, and relate to one another.

We have two goals for the remainder of the chapter. First, we review the role of Antagonism in personality, personality disorders, and general psychopathology. Second, we examine the role of Antagonism in various sorts of interpersonal problems. We seek to answer two questions. How ubiquitous is Antagonism in models of behavior? How important is it to outcomes we care about? Our answer to both questions is very.

Antagonism in basic models of personality

Antagonism/Agreeableness appears in all major models of personality. It has its most explicit representation in the Five-Factor Model of personality (FFM) which was derived from studies of the English...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright
• Contributors
• Preface
• 1: On the ubiquity and importance of antagonism
• 2: Five-Factor Model antagonism
• 3: Antagonism from a developmental perspective
• 4: The structure of antagonism
• 5: Self-report assessment of antagonism
• 6: Biological correlates of antagonism
• 7: Agreeableness, antagonism, and mental health across cultures
• 8: Translational value of nonhuman primate models of antagonism
• 9: Theoretical conceptualizations of agreeableness and antagonism
• 10: A social cognitive analysis of antagonism and reactive aggression
• 11: Antagonism from the perspective of interpersonal theory
• 12: Antagonism's place in psychiatric nosology
• 13: Antagonism and the DSM-5 alternative model of personality disorders
• 14: Antagonism in psychopathy
• 15: A Trifurcated Model of Narcissism: On the pivotal role of trait Antagonism
• 16: Antagonism and borderline personality disorder
• 17: Antagonism in the Dark Triad
• 18: Antagonism and romantic relationships
• 19: Antagonism and work outcomes: Implicit and explicit considerations
• 20: Antagonism and crime
• 21: Stability and change in antagonism over the lifespan
• 22: Treatment of antagonism: Motivational Interviewing
• 23: Psychodynamic approaches to treating antagonism
• 24: Treatment of antagonism: Cognitive behavioral therapy
• 25: Addressing antagonism in a Dialectical Behavior Therapy framework
• 26: Pharmacologic interventions for antagonism and related disorders
• 27: Volitional change in antagonism
• Index