Why Do Antagonist People Think They’re So Perfect?

The belief that they are better than everyone else can make people not just difficult to deal with but unbearable. What gives them the right to claim perfection, especially if they’re not much more than ordinary?

Perhaps you have an acquaintance, not really a friend, who carries themselves with an air of greatness. Just from their body language, you can tell that they have an inflated self-image. Making matters worse, they’re not particularly nice, so even if they had some Mary Poppins type of “practically perfect” qualities, you’d still be put off by their demeanor. What’s more, it’s not just you that this person offends, because they don’t seem to be liked by anyone else, either.

Antagonism and the Holier-Than-Thou Syndrome

According to University of Alabama’s William Hart and colleagues (2024), one of the chief culprits in this inflated self-assessment is the personality trait of antagonism. Made up of the four qualities of the “Dark Tetrad,” this quality represents a mixture of grandiose narcissism, psychopathy, Machiavellianism (cynicism and expediency), and sadism.

Although some of these tendencies may seem to describe people who possess some form of personality disorder, Hart et al. believe that they run along dimensions that can include people who don’t fit the clinical bill. Yes, there’s a risk that their lives are characterized by problems in a variety of areas from relationships to success in adult roles. However, even this risk threatens their ability to adapt to the world, Prior researchers proposed that they see little reason to change “because they lack insight into their moral deficiencies.”

One reason that antagonistic people fail to recognize their own moral shortcomings is because they, like everyone, suffer from feeling “better than the average person.” This creates the conundrum that, if everyone thinks they’re happier than average, for example, the average becomes, a “statistical improbability assuming a normal distribution.”

For ordinary people, this tendency (called the better-than-average effect [BTAE]) isn’t much of a problem. If anything, it can help people maintain their self-esteem in a world that may occasionally threaten it. For the highly antagonistic, the BTAE becomes one in which they believe their moral character to be better than everyone else’s. At some level, they think it’s good to uphold basic values, so claiming they have them bolsters their “path to self-enhancement.” What’s more, they “can probably muster some evidence to support that conclusion.” The question is whether this is sufficient to let them claim the moral high ground.

Testing the Antagonism–Better-Than-Average Effect

To test whether people high in antagonism show the BTAE, the UAB team administered a good-versus-evil measure under two conditions to a sample of 515 undergraduates. In the self-rating version, participants responded for themselves. For BTAE comparisons, they also completed the same test for the “average” person in the population. The questionnaire itself consisted of 53 words and phrases of which 32 represented good qualities (e.g., loving and considerate) and 21 bad ones (e.g., ruthless and malicious). A BTAE would show up if self-ratings were more favorable than average person ratings. Standard measures of antagonism served as the trait ratings. On a separate scale, participants rated themselves directly compared to the average person with items such as “I am much less moral than the average person.” A score of 3 indicates feeling a similar degree of morality as the average person.

Supporting previous studies on the BTAE, the average person in the sample as a whole provided inflated self-ratings in the good-bad ratio and in morality. To some extent, although inflated, there may be a basis in this belief given that the person who is not highly antagonistic might well be good and moral. However, given that people high in various antagonistic qualities, who describe themselves as using tactics to get what they want, tend toward grandiose exhibitionism, are callous, and may even behave in a physically sadistic manner, the BTAE would indeed seem to represent a self-enhancing distortion.

Lacking the ability to see their own failings, there really is no motivation for the antagonistic person to step down from their undeserved moral high ground. As the authors concluded, “antagonistic people probably regard antagonism as a negative trait and, to some extent, may desire to become less antagonistic as reinforcing a character strength.” After all, if you think you’re trying or wanting to be less of a mean, cynical, and grandiose person, that’s all you have to do. There’s no need really to change.

Dealing With the Holier-Than-Thou Antagonists

It can be hard to bring the antagonistic person back down to reality given this seeming reluctance to take off their blinders. However, the UAB authors provide at least some reason to hope they could potentially see themselves for who they are. One way is to try to lower their defensiveness, perhaps by helping them get closer to a “cherished value.” It’s worth a try. Their positive illusions become not only glaring but dysfunctional, and in the long run will not serve them well, so pointing this out could make some inroads.

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You may not particularly care what happens to these individuals who don’t let their low sense of morality interfere with their own high self-regard. Thinking back to that haughty acquaintance, it really has no impact on you if they stubbornly hold on to their sense of superiority. The less you have to deal with them, the better.

On the other hand, if some of their behavior strikes you as sad and even pathetic, you could try to exercise your own intrinsic (non-BTAE) goodness. If you believe that they are covering up an inner longing to be nicer and to fit in better with others, you could see what happens if you take them aside for a quiet chat.

To sum up, it’s helpful to know that there is a danger to the BTAE frame of mind, especially if it prevents you from owning up to your own frailties. A willingness to look past another person’s antagonism and into their potential inner goodness could help both of you reach a greater level of fulfillment.