We are who we thought we were: Confirming one’s own antagonism levels.

Abstract

Although many processes might contribute to the self-perpetuating nature of antagonistic personality, we proposed and tested the "antagonism-confirmation" perspective on this phenomenon. This perspective states that antagonistic personality is based in tendencies to confirm (vs. disconfirm) the self's beliefs about its personality. Importantly, this explanation uniquely predicts that antagonism-related personality constructs should relate to strategically adopting behaviors that vary on only their signification of higher or lower antagonism levels (and nothing more). In apparent privacy, nonclinical participants completed a color-gazing task, wherein antagonistic people ostensibly see colors become more (more-intense condition) or less intense (less-intense condition) while gazing at them. Consistent with the antagonism-confirmation perspective, antagonism-related personality constructs related to perceiving colors as turning more intense in the moreintense (vs. less-intense) condition. These effects could not be attributed to demand and occurred among a subsample of participants that indicated providing completely authentic responses. Furthermore, participants higher in antagonism-related personality constructs reported a greater likelihood of possessing antagonistic characteristics and that these characteristics were more beneficial; mediation evidence suggested that these reports were influenced by their confirmatory responding on the color-gazing task. Antagonism-confirmation tendencies might partly account for why antagonistic personality persists; broadly, the findings highlight the critical nature of identity management as a feature of antagonistic personality.

Is “sadistic pleasure” a contrived process of signaling one's antagonism?

“…That is, there was no clear evidence that people relatively higher in sadism were any less likely to use the framing manipulations to seem more moral (Study 1) or less antagonistic (Study 2). Hence, on the surface, the present data call into question findings in Hart, Richardson, et al (2022) that supported antagonism confirmation; recall that more antagonistic participants in that study used their perceptions of color change on a bogus color-gazing task to signal an antagonistic identity. However, it is possible to reconcile the discrepant evidence.…”

“…Prior antagonism confirmation research observed cross-over interactive effects that were moderate in size (f 2 = 0.09; Hart, Richardson, et al, 2022); however, the present work took a more conservative approach to estimating the interaction. Similar to prior conceptually related research (see Hart, Tortoriello, et al, 2021;Kwang & Swann, 2010), we estimated that the simple slope of sadism in each experimental condition would be on par with average effect sizes in individual difference research (r = 0.20 when displeasure is moral; r = −0.20 when sadistic pleasure is moral; Gignac & Szodorai, 2016).…”

“…In Hart, Richardson, et al (2022), the perceptual task could be more susceptible to preconscious distortion than the current tasks. Specifically, in Hart, Richardson, et al (2022), participants' ideas about their own antagonism could have provided expectations in the color-gazing trials, which promoted actual prediction-confirming perceptual experiences (Bruner et al, 1951;Markus, 1977). The current tasks involved semantic processing rather than a process of expectations shaping ambiguous perceptual experiences.…”

“…This shows that antagonistic people will make their social decisions to convey symbolic ideas that confirm their antagonistic identity: the data cannot be understood as reflecting some deficiency in social‐cognitive processing. Additionally, Hart, Richardson, et al (2022) demonstrated a similar phenomenon using an amalgam of antagonistic personality constructs (i.e., sadism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism, and antagonistic narcissism). When told that people higher (vs. lower) in antagonism see color turn more intense in a bogus color‐gazing task, people higher (vs. lower) in antagonism reported seeing the color turn more intense.…”

“…However, sadistic pleasure can also be understood via a contrived, self-presentation process of "antagonism confirmation" (Hart, Richardson, et al, 2022). Antagonism confirmation theory suggests that antagonistic personality, broadly, involves symbolic behavior displays that are intended to confirm (vs. disconfirm) one's beliefs about their own antagonistic features to audiences (self or others; Hart, Richardson, et al, 2022). To clarify, this self-presentational theory stipulates that antagonistic behaviors are, in part, intentional choices to symbolically convey an antagonistic identity.…”