Dark and light personalities: A utilitarian perspective on their impact on relational aggression

Relational aggression (RA) is associated with adverse outcomes and contributes to interpersonal relationship damage. Malevolent personality traits, including psychopathy, Machiavellianism, grandiose narcissism, and vulnerable narcissism, have been linked to engaging in RA, however, no research has investigated whether benevolent personality characteristics (faith in humanity, humanism, Kantianism and prosocial behaviour) mitigate RA engagement. Australian adults, recruited online from university and social media platforms, ( N = 2014, M = 39 years, SD = 16.9 years, age range: 18–82 years, 68.4 % females) completed an online self-report survey. Personality contributed to more than a third of RA variance. All malevolent traits were significant positive predictors of RA, while only Kantianism and prosocial behaviour were significant negative predictors of RA. Malevolent traits somewhat moderated the association of prosocial behaviour and RA, however, RA was elevated at high levels of malevolent traits regardless of prosociality. Findings demonstrate that while malevolent traits overwhelmingly predict use of RA, they are not entirely mitigated by benevolent behaviours. Further, our findings highlight the protective nature of Kantianism when considering the use of RA for social gain. Research into the temporal precedence of benevolent and malevolent personality characteristics to engaging in RA is needed.