The Antagonistic Triad and Interpersonal Problems: The Role of Rejection Sensitivity

The antagonistic triad includes three antagonistic personality constructs: psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism. Past research indicates that individuals with inflated antagonistic traits often face significant challenges in their romantic relationships. One of the reasons they might have such impairments in interpersonal connection is how they perceive rejection. Rejection sensitivity is the heightened emotional response to any sense of potential rejection which culminates into a "self-fulfilling prophecy", where the maladaptive behaviors exhibited after the perceived rejection results in actual rejection. Few studies have directly assessed rejection sensitivity for individuals elevated on the antagonistic triad personality constructs. Therefore, the intention of this study was to examine the connection between the antagonistic triad traits, rejection sensitivity, and interpersonal difficulties. This study tested five hypotheses via correlation and moderation analyses. The findings indicated that narcissism was positively correlated with both rejection sensitivity and interpersonal problems, psychopathy was positively correlated with interpersonal problems, and Machiavellianism was negatively correlated with both rejection sensitivity and interpersonal problems. Additionally, rejection sensitivity did not significantly moderate the relationship between narcissism and interpersonal problems, but did moderate the relationship between psychopathy and interpersonal problems. Future research should examine these relationships using various personality conceptualizations across different cultural backgrounds and consider possible gender differences.