Sadism is a 'dark' trait that involves the experience of pleasure from others' pain, yet much is unknown about its link to aggression. Across eight studies (total N=2,255), sadism predicted greater aggression against both innocent targets and provocateurs.These associations occurred above-and-beyond general aggressiveness, impulsivity, and other 'dark' traits. Sadism was associated with greater positive affect during aggression, which accounted for much of the variance in the sadism-aggression link.This aggressive pleasure was contingent on sadists' perceptions that their target suffered due to their aggressive act. After aggression, sadism was associated with increases in negative affect. Sadism thus appears to be a potent predictor of aggression that is motivated by the pleasure of causing pain. Such sadistic aggression ultimately backfires, resulting in greater negative affect. More generally, our results support the crucial role of anticipated and positive forms of affect in motivating aggression.

Narcissism has been identified as a potential risk factor for sexual aggression among men. the purpose of the present study was to examine whether specific facets of narcissism differed in terms of their association with sexual aggression. this was accomplished by examining the associations that the normal and pathological forms of narcissism had with sexual aggression. the results showed that only certain facets of narcissism were associated with sexual aggression. Facets of narcissism that concerned feelings of entitlement and a willingness to exploit others were positively associated with sexual aggression whereas pathological forms of narcissistic grandiosity were negatively associated with sexual aggression. discussion focuses on the implications of these results for understanding the connection between narcissistic personality features and sexually aggressive behavior.

Relatively few studies have focused on the connections between self-esteem and basic personality dimensions. The purpose of the present studies was to examine whether self-esteem level and self-esteem instability were associated with the Big Five personality dimensions and whether self-esteem instability moderated the associations that self-esteem level had with these personality features. This was accomplished by conducting a series of studies that included samples from the United States, Israel, and China. Across these studies, self-esteem level was associated with high levels of extraversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness, whereas self-esteem instability was associated with low levels of emotional stability, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Individuals with stable high self-esteem reported the highest levels of emotional stability, agreeableness, and conscientiousness, whereas those with stable low self-esteem had the lowest levels of openness. The results of these studies suggest that feelings of self-worth are associated with self-reported and perceived personality features.

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Scholars view racial identity as a fluid social construction that can shift with time and context. But outside of academia, do people intuitively see racial identity as fluid or fixed? Four studies reveal that people see racial identity as varying flexibly with the social context—in particular, assimilating to the race of one’s friends. Participants perceived the same Black–White Biracial men as identifying as more Black (Study 1) and wanting to be perceived as more stereotypically Black (i.e., athletic; Study 3c) when with Black friends than when alone. Conversely, Biracial men were perceived as identifying as more White (Study 2) and wanting to be perceived as more stereotypically White (i.e., competent and well-spoken; Studies 3a, 3b) when with White friends. Fluid inferences of racial identity also extended to Monoracial people (Studies 4a, 4b). We conclude that people perceive others’ racial identity as shifting with the social context—eliciting distinct biases.