A person arrives at the office, brings croissants, offers to cover a shift, remembers everyone’s birthday. Then, as soon as he changes rooms, he lets slip a nasty voice, isolates someone in a chat, spreads the kind of coldness that in social environments is almost as good as open aggression. The two things can be in the same character. Sometimes they hold hands. This is where a new study published on starts Personality and Individual Differenceswhich tries to understand why some people use reputation, exclusion and silence as levers of power within friendships, workplaces and social groups.
In psychology it is called relational aggression. It affects the bonds instead of the body. Inside there are malicious gossip, the silent treatment, organized exclusion, the gesture designed to move a person to the margins of the group without raising their voice too much. Precisely this oblique shape makes it easy to use for those who want to avoid a head-on collision and, at the same time, leave clean damage that is difficult to dispute. The consequences, however, remain heavy: those who suffer it can slide towards depression, desperation and extreme loneliness; those who practice it often show anxiety, difficulties in emotional regulation and risky behavior.
The group led by Brittany Patafio, from Deakin University in Australia, wanted to understand one specific thing: do benevolent traits really manage to curb the use of relational aggression, or do more manipulative traits continue to dominate the scene even when a person describes themselves as helpful, civil, even altruistic? The question matters because this theoretical avenue has been explored much less in the field of behavioral science than one might think. The scholars started from a simple idea: faced with an ambiguous situation, a more benevolent person could read it with less threat, reacting with less hostility and less need for social control. The data returned a harsher picture.
To read that picture, the researchers compared two families of psychological characteristics. On the one hand there is the dark triad, the constellation that brings together psychopathy, Machiavellianism and narcissism. Narcissism, in turn, was considered in its two most cited forms: the grandiose one, made up of superiority and entitlement, and the vulnerable one, more insecure, introverted, sensitive to criticism. Machiavellianism describes someone who treats relationships as a strategic game, tries to use others for personal advantage, and cares deeply about their public image. Psychopathy, on the other hand, is linked to impulsiveness, poor empathy, lack of remorse and willingness to act in an antisocial manner. Previous studies had already linked these traits to social sabotage.
On the other side there is the so-called luminous triad. Here comes trust in humanity, that is, the idea that people are good at their core, humanism, which recognizes dignity and value in others, and Kantianism, a term taken from Immanuel Kant which indicates the tendency to treat others as ends in themselves, whole people with a life of their own, and never as simple instruments. Alongside these traits, the team also measured daily prosocial behaviors: helping, sharing resources, collaborating, offering concrete support to those who need it.
To test these relationships, 2,014 Australian adults were recruited online through university networks and social media advertisements. The average age was 39 years, with a very wide range from 18 to 82 years; 68.4% of the sample was made up of women. Everyone filled out self-assessment questionnaires, indicating how much they recognized themselves in statements about their own way of thinking and behaving. To measure relational aggression, for example, very concrete things were asked: I spread rumors only to hurt, I ignore someone on purpose to punish them, I use exclusion as a response. To measure Kantianism, however, phrases appeared about preferring honesty to manipulative charm; for prosociality, questions on willingness to help peers.
The dark triad remains the main driver
The central result weighs a lot. Personality, as a whole, explained more than a third of the observed differences in the use of relational aggression. The biggest part of that effect came from the malevolent traits. All dark traits were positive and significant predictors. On the flip side, the researchers expected all benevolent traits to be associated with lower levels of social sabotage. It went differently. Trust in people’s goodness and recognition of their intrinsic worth alone did not show a robust statistical effect on aggressive habits. Only Kantianism and prosocial behavior remained standing as reliable protective factors.
In the report of the results, psychopathy and vulnerable narcissism emerge as the strongest signals, while grandiose narcissism weighs less. It’s an interesting nuance. Those who tend to act without guilt can use gossip as a shortcut to control. Those who live in fear of rejection, as happens in the most vulnerable forms of narcissism, can rely on subtle exclusion as a covert, almost preventive defense. They are different forms of aggression, with a common ground: shifting the social balance to one’s advantage.
Here comes the most uncomfortable part of the study. Thinking well of humanity is not enough. Having a high image of others does not automatically prevent you from punishing them with silence, from ruining their reputation, from using the group as a weapon. The authors insist precisely on this difference between thought and action. Benevolent beliefs, taken alone, remain too light. Concrete behaviors and a stricter moral rule on how people are treated can slow things down more.
Helping and sabotaging can coexist
The sharpest part comes when the team looks at the intertwining of darkness and kindness. Some people do things useful to others for fully instrumental reasons: to gain consensus, cultivate an impeccable image, gain position, maintain a strong advantage. In these cases, prosociality changes face. It becomes a tool, one of many. The authors observed that those who scored high on malicious traits maintained high levels of relational aggression even when they reported high levels of prosocial behaviors. In short, availability was no substitute for sabotage. It added to the repertoire.
For very manipulative profiles, helping and hitting seem like two parallel tracks. We cooperate when it is convenient. He gets hurt when it’s most convenient. The courteous facade and the voice spread at the right time can serve the same objective: governing the climate of the group, deciding who stays at the center and who is pushed towards the edge. In people with very low levels of dark traits, however, practical help actually tends to take the place of aggressive tactics. Here kindness stops being a mask and coherent behavior returns.
The limits remain clear
The study, however, keeps its limitations clearly visible. The data was collected at a single point in time, so the work photographs strong associations, but does not allow us to establish a certain causal chain. The researchers used only self-reported questionnaires, an inevitable choice in many personality studies, which brings with it a known problem: When asking someone to talk about their antisocial behaviors, some of the answers can be softened to appear more acceptable. Even anonymity does not completely erase this filter.
Then there is the profile of the champion. The Australian adults involved reported fairly low baseline levels of relational aggression and high levels of benevolent traits. A more hostile group, or one inserted in more tense social contexts, could produce at least partially different dynamics. This is why the authors call for longitudinal studies, capable of following people for years and understanding what comes first: which beliefs, which traits, which habits pave the way for greater covert hostility, and which actually contain it. From there, more effective educational programs could arise against interpersonal abuse, before it permanently ruins communities, classes, work environments, groups of friends.
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