Traitset - Antagonistic Behavior

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Antagonistic Behavior

The goal of this assessment is to identify where a person is along a continuum from being too soft, giving, and warm to aggressive, easily angered, and ultimately harassing or even prone to violent behavior. Scales that only measure potential harassment or violence (negative end) run a major risk since they are looking for overt behavior that most people do not like to admit or claim. Therefore, if you can get a feel for where a person is located along a scale from very meek to physically aggressive, you have a better sense for the likelihood of socially abusive or antagonistic behavior. Actually displaying antagonistic behavior is multi-determined but it is realistic to assume that people with higher scores are more likely to exhibit overt abusive behavior. Additionally, since claiming or admitting abusive behavior is not socially desirable, an honesty scale is included to pick up a bias where people may distort the way they really are but claim the opposite.

NOTE: The first two scales tend to show meekness, the next two show a more assertive/aggressive stance and the next two actually tap into the likelihood (or actual claiming) of abusive behavior.

Antagonistic Behavior Definitions

1. Warmth

A genuine interest in others as opposed to an interest in oneself. Genuinely warm people are less likely to exhibit aggressive behavior since their natural inclination is to establish positive relationships with others.

2. Assertion

People who are assertive are more willing to stand up for their views and are not afraid to overtly deal with conflict. This scale is a continuum that runs from passive (much lower likelihood for overt violence) to aggressive (a creator of conflict). Usually lower score are less prone to harassing or violent behavior because they dislike conflict. However, they are also subject to being harassed themselves, perhaps leading to a build up of anger and a potential blow up.

3. Anger

Anger is not good or bad since it depends on WHAT you do with it. Some people handle it in a mature way and state they are angry and want to resolve the problem. Other people just become overtly angry, verbally abusive (yelling) or may show physical activity (e.g., throwing things or kicking a chair). The point is that greater feelings of anger lead to greater antagonism.

4. Suffocate

When someone is stressed or frustrated they can become angry (see below). Another defense is to suffocate their feeling toward the person who has been offensive by buttering him up and making sure that everything is okay. Hence, the natural inclination is not to increase any overt hostility (actually avoid overt displays of anger) but to mitigate bad feelings and improve the relationship.

5. Harassing

Someone with a high score on this scale is actually admitting a tendency to harass others when frustrated, did not get his/her way or is irritated at others. Clearly, a person who readily admits this behavior (or tendency toward) probably has a greater likelihood of showing it in difficult/stressful situations.

6. Violence

A highscore on this scale is an admission of tendencies toward overt violent/physical behavior (e.g., grabbing others) or stating that you either enjoy violence or feel it is an appropriate method to deal with frustration. Enjoying violence (e.g., action movies) may not indicate that the person will actually use violence when dealing with others. However, admitting the behavior and feeling it is an appropriate way to deal with stressful relationships certainly increases the odds of overtly violent displays.

7. Withholding

This is really a Bias scale that measures a person's tendency to give reasonable or realistic responses versus some distorted (e.g., exaggeration or lying) response. Low scores often suggest the person is exaggerating the positive aspects (socially desirable) of their behavior. Therefore they would be UNLIKLY to admit actual tendencies toward abusive behavior. High scores indicate a self-critical approach so the person may be too honest in admitting abusive behavior. Hence, high/low scores cause one to interpret the data either up or down.

8. Anchor Cherry Picking (ACp)

Some people use extreme scores creating a True/ False test which may not invalidate it. However, with a HIGH overall score (>85%) and an ACP score is > 80%, they may be "Cherry-picking" answers that may not reflect their real style.