Spite (sentiment)

In his 1929 examination of emotional disturbances, Psychology and Morals: An Analysis of Character, J. A. Hadfield uses deliberately spiteful acts to illustrate the difference between disposition and sentiment.

Spite has also been studied as a trait of human personality; although in general spite has been largely ignored in academic literature. University of Washington researchers David K Marcus, Virgil Zeigler-Hill, Sterett H Mercer, and Alyssa L Norris were the first to develop a personality scale designed to measure and assess the trait of spitefulness which was published in 2014 in Psychological Assessment.

Spite in literature

The Underground Man, in Fyodor Dostoevsky's novella Notes from Underground, is an example of spite. His motivation remains constantly spiteful, undercutting his own existence and ability to live.