The purpose of this study was to determine the associations between personality traits (i.e., psychopathy and narcissism) and aggression in the context of frustraion. The frustration-provoking situations were divided into ego-threatening or achievement-failure, depending on whether or not negative evaluative self-information were involved, and the associations between psychopathy and narcissism levels and types of aggression were examined in each context. A total 192 undergraduate students completed a set of questionnaires psychopathy, narcissism and self-esteem. Subsequently, participants were randomly assigned to either plan failure or ego-threat situation, and were asked to read a scenario that described respective frustration event. Physical and verbal aggression were then measured using the Aggression Questionnaire and the Competitive Reaction Time Task. Results from hierarchical regression models revealed that, higher levels of psychopathy associated with levels of physical and verbal aggression in both plan failure and ego-threat situations. Additionally, high levels of narcissism led to high levels of verbal aggression in the ego-threat situation. Theoretical and clinical implications as well as limitations of the study were also discussed.
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