If you act or speak with the desire to hurt, bother, or infuriate someone, you are being spiteful. You could deliberately hurt someone's feelings or embarrass them with your spiteful words, or you could watch a jealous child give her friend a spiteful shove.
Spiteful implies a mean or malicious desire for (often petty) revenge: a spiteful attitude toward a former friend. Revengeful implies a deep, powerful, and continued intent to repay a wrong: a fierce and revengeful spirit.
Spiteful behavior can be modeled with game theory. Spite can come from desperation, strategic signaling, or lack of thought. Spite can mask as forgiveness.
Even if you're respectful when you address the situation, a spiteful person may not back down. If the other person remains hostile or negative, you need to be the bigger person. Do not resort to any negative tactics the person uses, such as yelling or name calling. Instead, remain calm and walk away if necessary.
People with toxic traits know they have them
It's natural to assume someone's bad behavior is a conscious choice. But many people with toxic traits don't realize that their behavior impacts others. You may have toxic traits that you don't know about. Some toxic traits, like absolutism, manifest subtly.
Toxic people love to manipulate those around them to get what they want. This means lying, bending the truth, exaggerating, or leaving out information so that you take a certain action or have a certain opinion of them. They'll do whatever it takes, even if it means hurting people.
Alternatively, a narrower definition includes the requirement that spiteful acts involve some degree of self-harm." One possible definition of spite is to intentionally annoy, hurt, or upset even when there might be no (apparent) gain, and even when those actions might cause the person spiting harm, as well.
Spite is defined as petty ill will or hatred with the disposition to irritate, annoy or thwart. You may have heard the expression – Don't cut off your nose to spite your face.
out of spite means: To deliberately hurt someone because they have hurt you. Revenge really. Retaliation. I broke up with Sally last week, so yesterday she gave me back all the gifts I gave to her out of spite.
In today's usage, spite (at its best) is viewed as executing revenge on another perceived as having harmed us, and (at its worst) an act of gratuitous malice, undertaken by a morally bankrupt sociopath.
A person described as vindictive is usually someone who holds a grudge and who always tries to get back at people who they think have wronged them in some way. Vindictive people retaliate against others for any insult or perceived slight. Vindictive people do not let things go.
Spite—social behaviour that inflicts harm with no direct benefit to the actor—can evolve when it is disproportionally directed at individuals playing different strategies.
Vindictiveness is a common narcissistic trait, but may become dangerous or harmful in severe cases. The more pathological a narcissist is, the more likely it is they'll also display antisocial traits like a lack of empathy or a tendency to use, exploit, and abuse others.
spiteful in American English
revengeful implies a deep, powerful, and continued intent to repay a wrong: a fierce and revengeful spirit. vindictive does not imply action necessarily, but stresses the unforgiving nature of the avenger: a vindictive look.
Spiteful behaviour, or the desire to harm another at some cost to yourself, has long been observed in lab experiments, but there has been surprisingly little psychological research into what it actually is and how it varies from person to person.
Spite may have its roots in the desire to get ahead of others (dominance) and to stop others getting ahead of you (counter-dominance). It is clear that the human desire for dominance has deep evolutionary roots, but so, it appears, does our counter-dominant drive.
It means that hurting who we love or used to love is like hurting ourselves. A common example of spite in emotional relationships often occurs when an ex-partner starts a relationship with someone close to the partner they've left. For instance, having an affair with a sibling of the ex-partner is pretty common.
spite. 1 of 2 noun. ˈspīt. : dislike or hatred for another person with a wish to torment, anger, or defeat.
Spite is defined as a typically petty desire to annoy, frustrate or humiliate another person. While that sounds negative, the motivation associated with spite can be powerful and useful. Embracing it as a motivator is possible, and doesn't have to be an inherently bad trait or experience.
Toxic relationships generally follow three stages: idealizing, devaluing, and discarding. Learn about each of these stages and the impact it has on you.
Toxic people are often pessimistic, and their attitude can be contagious. If you spend too much time around them, you may start to doubt yourself and question your ability to achieve your goals. Additionally, toxic people can be manipulative and Machiavellian.
Many people who behave in a toxic manner have been through trauma themselves, and instead of dealing with that trauma, these people start exhibiting toxic traits. These people usually don't know how to process trauma and stress in a healthy manner, so they end up being unpleasant around people.
They make you doubt yourself
Toxic people have a way of making you feel guilty just for being you. One of the most common ways in which they do this is to poke holes in the way you are talking about something. Remember how they have an underlying tone when they ask you something?