Targets of common insult are middle-aged, male and seen as uninterested in changing behavior
UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA
That person in your life who’s irritating, exasperating and
generally unpleasant to be around. In other words, a total asshole.
New research from the University of Georgia suggests that the
“biggest assholes” in many people’s lives are middle-aged men.
Published in Collabra: Psychology, the study asked almost 400 people to think of
the “biggest asshole” in their life to assess the traits that people associate
with the term. Researchers found that most of the targets of the insult were
viewed as manipulative, aggressive and entitled.
These traits, along with other common themes like manipulation
and irresponsibility, don’t just characterize run-of-the-mill “assholes.”
They’re some of the same traits highlighted in expert profiles of psychopathic,
antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders. (The researchers say that
these similarities don’t necessarily mean your asshole ex has a personality
disorder, though.)
“People didn’t really have very much trouble figuring out who the ‘biggest asshole’ in their life was,” said Brinkley Sharpe, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. About half of the “assholes” were participants’ former romantic partners, old bosses or estranged family members.
“On average, participants didn’t think that they were very close
to these individuals, which makes sense because these people are being
described as having pretty aversive behaviors.”
But about one out of three of the “biggest assholes” were people
currently in participants’ lives, including co-workers, friends and even
current romantic partners.
A--holes are viewed as disagreeable and angry
After identifying the “biggest asshole” in their lives,
participants were asked to describe how close they were to that person, what
kind of relationship they have with that person and the extent to which the
term fit that person. The respondents were then asked to describe the top three
behaviors that made that person an “asshole.”
For each of those behaviors, participants rated agreement with
follow-up questions: Do you think that person knows their behavior bothers
people? Do you think that person cares that their behavior bothers people? And
do you think that person could change their behavior if they really wanted to?
Most of the participants believed the jerks in their lives were
aware that their behavior bothered people but just didn’t care enough to change.
“It’s interesting to me that the behaviors people were keying in
on sort of run the gamut,” Sharpe said. “When we talk about personality, the
asshole was described as somebody who is not agreeable and is angry.
“When we talk about behaviors, the asshole was not necessarily
being antagonistic toward people, but they just didn’t really care about what
others were thinking or how they were perceived by others.”
These people often appeared to struggle with regulating their
anger, were irresponsible and held bigoted views.
Responses ranged from seemingly trivial complaints, things like
this person put household decorations away incorrectly, to more severe. “Some
of the responses were pretty violent,” Sharpe said. “We had a couple where the
individual had done something that was frankly criminal.”
Others were more a sign of the times, with participants
complaining that the person didn’t wear a mask or voted for Donald Trump.
“There’s clearly a lot of variation in how people use this
word,” Sharpe said. “I think the implication of the study is that insults
matter. We do mean certain things by using them or we associate them with
certain characteristics.”
The study was co-authored by Courtland Hyatt, a recent doctoral
graduate from the UGA clinical psychology program, now a postdoctoral fellow at
VA Puget Sound; Donald Lynam, professor of psychological sciences at Purdue
University; and Joshua Miller, professor of psychology and
chair of the clinical program at UGA.