200+ Negative Emotional, Social, & Behavioral Character Traits

When you’re fleshing out characters for a story, pinpointing their flaws is just as critical as determining their virtues! So, if you’re struggling to give your characters realistic negative traits, you’ve come to the right place. There are hundreds of negative character traits to explore, which is why we’ve compiled a handy collection of traits and their meanings. Plus, we’ve included tips on using negative character traits in your writing, with expert advice from professional writer Grant Faulkner and acting skills coach Tara Blau Smollen. Without further ado, let’s dive in!

Quick Examples of Negative Character Traits

Emotional traits: Anxious, frenetic, insecure, maudlin, nihilistic, paranoid
Social traits: Abrasive, antisocial, boastful, callous, insolent, snobby, tactless
Behavioral traits: Aggressive, brash, cantankerous, devious, lewd, selfish, vindictive
Cognitive traits: Apathetic, flaky, gullible, humorless, morbid, weak-willed

Section 1 of 7:

Negative Emotional Character Traits

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These traits concern different emotional aspects of a character—their temperament, the way they experience emotions, and how they manage their emotions. Keep in mind that “negative” is a relative concept—some of these traits might be negative to some people, but neutral or not so bad to others.
- Anxious - Extremely uneasy or fearful about what might happen
- Crabby - Irritable, easily annoyed, given to complaining
- Cynical - Distrusting of people and their motivations
- Dramatic - Theatrical, reacts in exaggerated ways
- Excitable - Easily excited or roused into action
- Fearful - Prone to getting scared often
- Frenetic - Energetic in a wild, uncontrolled manner
- Grim - Forbidding, uninviting, or lacking levity
- Grumpy - Bad-tempered
- Hysterical - Affected by hysteria (uncontrolled, extreme emotions)
- Insecure - Lacking confidence and self-assurance
- Irritable - Easily annoyed or angry
- Jealous - Envious of other people and their achievements
- Jittery - Nervous, unable to relax
- Maudlin - Self-pitying, overly sentimental
- Melancholic - Filled with pensive sadness, severely depressed
- Melodramatic - Prone to exaggerated or overemotional reactions
- Moody - Prone to unpredictable mood changes
- Morose - Sullen, gloomy, bad-tempered
- Nervous - Easily alarmed or agitated, high-strung
- Nihilistic - Having the viewpoint that life is meaningless
- Overemotional - Unusually and excessively emotional, easily excited
- Overwhelmed - Defeated, completely overcome in mind or feeling
- Paranoid - Unreasonably anxious and suspicious of people
- Pessimistic - Tending to see the worst in people or believe the worst will happen
- Smug - Showing excessive pride in oneself
- Temperamental - Prone to unreasonable mood changes
- Tense - Rigid, unable to relax, prone to nervousness or anxiety
- Thin-skinned - Sensitive to criticism and insults
- Tremulous - Timid and nervous
Meet the wikiHow Experts

Tara Blau Smollen is a Presentation & Acting Skills Coach with over 35 years of professional and academic experience. Tara is a three-time Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle (BATCC) Award Nominee and a two-time Dean Good Award Recipient.

Grant Faulkner, MA is a professional writer and the Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Grant is also the co-founder of the literary magazine 100 Word Story and has published two books on writing.

Section 2 of 7:

Negative Social Character Traits

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Social traits affect how characters interact with others (and the environment around them). Communication skills, social awareness, and the ability to form relationships all fall under this umbrella, and there are negative character traits that can affect each of those skills. Take a look at the following negative social character traits: ^{[1]
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- Abrasive - Unconcerned with other people’s feelings
- Antisocial - Shunning the company of others
- Arrogant - Having an exaggerated sense of one’s importance
- Bad-mannered - Having poor manners, impolite
- Blunt - Uncompromisingly forthright and plainspoken
- Boastful - Showing excessive pride and self-satisfaction in one’s achievements
- Callous - Cruel and insensitive, showing disregard for others
- Conceited - Vain, excessively proud of oneself
- Confrontational - Argumentative, tending to deal with situations in an aggressive manner
- Controlling - Inclined to control situations or other people’s behavior
- Defamatory - Making harmful and untrue statements about others to damage their reputation
- Dishonest - Prone to untrustworthy or fraudulent behavior
- Disloyal - False or treacherous toward others
- Disrespectful - Showing a lack of respect or courtesy toward others
- Garrulous - Excessively talkative, usually on trivial subjects
- Gossipy - Enjoys talking, gossiping, and spreading rumors about other people
- Harsh - Cruel, severe
- Haughty - Arrogantly superior and disdainful of others
- Inconsiderate - Prone to thoughtlessness and acting without consideration of others
- Insensitive - Shows no concern for other people’s feelings or pain
- Insolent - Intentionally rude or disrespectful toward others
- Intrusive - Intruding where one is not welcome, making others uncomfortable
- Judgmental - Tends to make quick, overly harsh, or critical judgments
- Manipulative - Controls people to one’s own advantage
- Mocking - Making fun of others in a cruel way
- Nagging - Persistently complaining or criticizing others
- Nosy - Prone to prying into other people’s affairs
- Offensive - Unpleasant, aggressive, causing others to feel hurt or angry
- Overbearing - Domineering and oppressive; bossy
- Passive-aggressive - Prone to expressing negative feelings indirectly (through the silent treatment, sarcasm, and so on) instead of addressing them openly
- Patronizing - Showing a superior attitude, speaking like others are unimportant
- Perfidious - Untrustworthy, treacherous, and deceitful
- Quarrelsome - Prone to arguing or fighting with others
- Rude - Offensive, impolite, bad-mannered, or crude
- Snide - Derogatory or mocking toward others
- Snobby - Treating others as lesser and acting superior (often based on class or wealth)
- Stern - Serious, strict, severe, and unrelenting in disposition
- Stubborn - Unwilling to yield, refusing to consider new ideas or ways of doing things
- Tactless - Lacking sensitivity when dealing with others (and delicate issues)
- Timid - Easily scared; lacking courage or confidence
- Uncommunicative - Unwilling to talk or give information to others
- Uncooperative - Unwilling to help or work with people when asked
- Verbose - Uses more words than necessary, often rambling and causing boredom
- Vulgar - Lacking sophistication, making offensive or rude comments
- Whiny - Prone to complaining, particularly with an annoying, high-pitched voice

Section 3 of 7:

Negative Behavioral Character Traits

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Behavioral traits reflect a character’s patterns of behavior—in other words, the way they act around others. This is a pretty broad category, as people can act in many different ways! Once again, some of the behavioral character traits below might be considered more severe or negative than others, depending on your outlook and opinion. ^{[2]
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- Addictive - Predisposed to addiction (unhealthy dependence) on substances or habits
- Aggressive - Forceful, prone to making unprovoked attacks or arguments
- Antagonistic - Showing unfriendliness or opposition to someone
- Avoidant - Prone to withdrawing from intimacy or interactions with others
- Bawdy - Indecent and lewd, making boisterous and obscene sexual jokes
- Belligerent - Inclined to be combative or aggressive toward others
- Blundering - Prone to foolish or careless mistakes
- Boorish - Rough, rude, or insensitive to other people’s feelings
- Brash - Assertive or irreverent in a rude, noisy manner
- Brutish - Prone to rough, unpleasant, or violent behavior
- Cantankerous - Bad-tempered and argumentative
- Catty - Purposefully spiteful and unkind to others
- Childish - Behaving in a childlike, immature manner
- Cocky - Conceited and arrogant; smugly self-confident
- Cold - Lacking affection or emotion
- Compulsive - Unable to stop oneself from doing something
- Crass - Lacking refinement or sensitivity
- Defensive - Having a self-protective attitude, anxious to challenge and deflect criticism
- Devious - Using dishonest methods to achieve goals; lying to or tricking others
- Disorganized - Lacking coordination, having difficulty staying organized, and performing tasks
- Evasive - Prone to avoiding commitment or connection with others
- Extravagant - Lacking restraint in terms of spending money or indulging one’s desires
- Foolish - Lacking good judgment or wisdom
- Frivolous - Lacking serious purpose, overly carefree
- Fussy - Hard to please, being picky about one’s needs and requirements
- Gluttonous - Excessively greedy, eating or drinking without restraint, and consuming more than needed to an unhealthy degree
- Greedy - Having an intense, selfish desire for something (often money or power)
- Gutless - Lacking courage
- Hypocritical - Behaving contrary to one’s beliefs (or what one claims to feel)
- Immature - Childish, showing emotional or intellectual depth suitable for someone younger
- Impatient - Easily irritated or provoked, unwilling to accept delays
- Impractical - Not sensible, practical, or realistic
- Impulsive - Acting without thinking or considering the consequences first
- Inflexible - Unwilling to change or accept a compromise
- Inhibited - Unable to relax or act naturally, held back by mental restraint
- Irresponsible - Lacking a sense of responsibility, not reliable or trustworthy
- Lascivious - Filled with overt, often offensive sexual desire
- Lecherous - Showing excessive sexual desire (and acting on it in a way that makes others uncomfortable)
- Lewd - Crude, offensive, prone to making vulgar sexual remarks
- Loutish - Behaving in a way that’s rude, awkward, clumsy, or aggressive; prone to bad behavior and manners
- Macho - Having aggressive and excessive pride in one’s masculinity
- Meek - Submissive, willing to go along with whatever other people want
- Mischievous - Fond of causing mild trouble, annoying people, playing pranks
- Needy - Desperate for attention and love, overly clingy
- Obsessive - Prone to thinking about someone or something all the time, nonstop
- Perfectionism - Refusing to accept any standard short of perfection
- Possessive - Determined to own or control someone or something; demanding someone’s complete attention
- Pretentious - Trying to seem smarter or more important than one really is
- Prideful - Having an overly high opinion of oneself
- Pushy - Trying too hard or aggressively to get someone to do something
- Reckless - Prone to acting without thinking about the consequences
- Resentful - Feeling bitter or indignant toward others, often about something unfair
- Restless - Unable to rest or relax
- Rowdy - Noisy, boisterous, and disorderly
- Self-indulgent - Doing precisely what one wants, following one’s appetites, desires, and whims without restraint
- Selfish - Concerned with oneself alone, and lacking consideration for others
- Shallow - Lacking character and emotional or intellectual depth
- Shifty - Deceitful, evasive, and untrustworthy
- Spoiled - Being demanding and entitled after having been treated indulgently by others
- Stingy - Lacking generosity, unwilling to give or spend money
- Subservient - Willing to obey orders or do what others want without question
- Superstitious - Believing in superstitions (old ideas about magic and luck)
- Suspicious - Distrustful of someone or something
- Uncouth - Lacking grace or polish, behaving rudely
- Ungrateful - Showing or feeling no gratitude toward others
- Unscrupulous - Having no moral standards; lacking principles
- Vain - Having an overly high opinion of oneself, taking excessive pride in appearances
- Vindictive - Having a strong, spiteful urge to seek revenge
- Volatile - Likely to change unpredictably (usually for the worse)
- Withdrawn - Unwilling to communicate with others
- Workaholic - Working hard nearly all of the time, finding it hard to stop working
- Zealous - Showing ardent, intense devotion to a particular belief or cause

Section 4 of 7:

Negative Cognitive & Motivational Character Traits

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Cognitive and motivational traits refer to a character’s mental processes, thinking abilities, and drive to get things done or accomplish their goals. There are negatives at both ends of the spectrum for this category; for instance, a character might have no motivation to achieve something or pursue it with such single-minded determination that they forget everything else. Take a look: ^{[3]
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- Aimless - Having no purpose or direction in life
- Apathetic - Showing no interest or emotion; being unwilling to take action
- Banal - Lacking originality or uniqueness; boring
- Clueless - Having no knowledge of something; being totally uninformed
- Complacent - Being so satisfied with a situation that one feels no need to try harder
- Dim - Not bright; lacking intelligence or knowledge
- Dysfunctional - Not functioning or behaving in a way that others would consider normal
- Flaky - Unreliable and prone to irresponsibility; eccentric and unconventional
- Forgetful - Unlikely to remember things; neglectful
- Gullible - Easily fooled, duped, or persuaded to believe things
- Humorless - Lacking a sense of humor, unlikely to laugh or express humor
- Idle - Lazy and prone to doing nothing; prone to avoiding work
- Indecisive - Unable to make effective decisions
- Ignorant - Lacking knowledge, awareness, or education
- Inattentive - Not attentive; not paying attention to others
- Irrational - Lacking logic or reason, prone to acting without clear thinking
- Know-it-all - Behaving as if one knows everything
- Lazy - Being unwilling to work or exert any energy
- Morbid - Interested in disturbing and unpleasant subjects
- Mundane - Lacking interest or excitement
- Oblivious - Unaware of things happening around oneself; lacking mindful attention
- Procrastinating - Prone to delaying or postponing something as long as possible
- Scatterbrained - Disorganized, lacking concentration or focus
- Single-minded - Concentrating on one single goal or purpose
- Sluggish - Lacking energy, slow-moving, inactive
- Unimaginative - Lacking imagination, creativity, or cleverness
- Unintelligent - Lacking intelligence or knowledge
- Uninteresting - Incapable of attracting interest from others
- Weak-willed - Lacking the ability to restrain oneself or resist outside influences

Section 5 of 7:

Extremely Negative Character Traits

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The negative traits below don’t fit into a particular emotional, behavioral, or social category. Instead, they’re some of the more extreme negative characteristics, including many that a true villain character might have (as opposed to run-of-the-mill flaws that any character could possess). Here’s a list of intensely negative traits:
- Abhorrent - Inspiring intense disgust or hatred from others
- Abusive - Offensive, insulting, regularly using cruelty or violence against others
- Amoral - Lacking morality and unconcerned with “right” or “wrong”
- Authoritarian - Enforcing strict obedience and authority over others
- Barbarous - Savagely cruel and brutal; uncivilized
- Bigoted - Devoted to a creed or opinion that makes them intolerant toward others
- Brutal - Lacking sensitivity or compassion; savage or violent
- Bully - Pushing people around, using words or violence to hurt others
- Cruel - Willfully hurting others and causing suffering without regret
- Cowardly - Lacking courage, unwilling to take risks, unprincipled
- Destructive - Causing immense harm or damage (to people or things)
- Dogmatic - Prone to expressing faith or beliefs strongly and treating them like facts
- Egocentric - Thinking only of oneself without considering the needs of others
- Evil - Given to profoundly immoral behavior, causing pain and suffering in others
- Extremist - Someone with extreme, unreasonable political or religious views
- Fanatical - Motivated by extreme devotion to a single (controversial) matter
- Fiendish - Diabolical, perverse, taking devilish pleasure in hurting people
- Hateful - Full of hate and malice
- Hostile - Openly antagonistic, unfriendly, and aggressive toward others
- Intolerant - Unwilling to accept beliefs or behavior that are different from one’s own
- Malevolent - Having the desire to cause great harm or evil to others
- Malicious - Filled with the desire to cause harm or suffering to others
- Maniacal - Prone to wild, violent, erratic behavior
- Merciless - Having no mercy for others, unrelenting, pitiless
- Prejudiced - Having an unreasonable dislike or distrust for someone due to a bias
- Racist - The belief that one’s race makes one better than other people
- Remorseless - Having no regret or guilt, often about cruelty toward others
- Revolting - Extremely unpleasant, disgusting, or offensive to be around
- Ruthless - Having no pity or compassion for others
- Sadistic - Taking pleasure or satisfaction from inflicting pain and humiliation on others
- Self-destructive - Prone to behavior that could harm or destroy oneself
- Unethical - Not conforming to a morally correct or ethical standard
- Vicious - Deliberately cruel, harsh, and severe
- Violent - Prone to using violent, destructive physical force against others
- Wicked - Evil, morally wrong, sinful
- Xenophobic - Feeling fear and hatred toward anyone considered “foreign” or strange

Section 6 of 7:

How to Use Negative Character Traits in Writing

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1
Create flawed and relatable characters. Everyone has flaws and negative traits; it’s part of being human. And, as Blau Smollen says, “The most compelling people or villains are the ones that are not just two-sided but have a lot of layers to them, like an onion.” ^{[4]
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Expert Source

Tara Blau Smollen
Presentation & Acting Skills Coach

Expert Interview} So, give your characters (including the protagonist) realistic flaws to make them more relatable to readers.
- When readers can identify with a character and their flaws, it makes the whole story more entertaining!
- For example, you could have a protagonist who struggles with insecurity or anxiety, which are both things that many people deal with in real life, too.
2
Use negative traits to drive a character or story’s conflict. “I think the most important thing about a character in the novel is for the author to know what drives that character, what motivates them, what the character's desire is, and what stands in the way of the character achieving that desire,” says Faulkner. ^{[5]
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Expert Source

Grant Faulkner, MA
Professional Writer

Expert Interview} See if you can find flaws by fleshing out a character’s motivations ; you can then use those flaws to create internal and external conflict throughout the story.
- Internal conflict occurs within the character’s mind; for example, a resentful character might struggle internally with overcoming their bitterness and learning to forgive.
- External conflict occurs between characters and outside forces; for example, a flaky or jealous character might hurt the protagonist, causing a rift between them that gets resolved by the end of the story.
3
Foreshadow a character’s future arc with their negative traits. As we’ve already mentioned, negative traits don’t have to stay exactly as they are; a character can grow and learn from them. So, when you define a character’s most significant flaws at the beginning of a story, it also reveals to readers what those characters will have to overcome to grow (or what their ultimate downfall will be). ^{[6]
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- For example, a hero who overthinks everything might need to manage those anxieties to finally succeed.
- On the other hand, a cowardly character might end up losing to the protagonist or receiving their just reward due to their cowardice.
4
Make realistic villains with negative traits. A truly great villain shouldn’t be evil just because. “Think about writing an autobiography of the character, and think about what has made them come to this,” Blau Smollen recommends. “Are they as horrible as we think they are?” ^{[7]
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Expert Source

Tara Blau Smollen
Presentation & Acting Skills Coach

Expert Interview} In other words, give your villains a real reason to do the things they do, and characteristics that influence their actions, making them the villains they are.
- For example, your villain could be authoritarian and destructive because they fear it’s the only way to protect the things they love most.

Section 7 of 7:

Examples of Literary Characters with Notable Flaws

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Just in case you need some real-life examples of negative traits in characters, we’ve come prepared! Keep in mind that the characters on this list aren’t all “evil” or “villains”; the point here is to show you that negative character traits can apply to all characters in different ways. From protagonists to the most malicious of villains, negative traits are everywhere, so take a look:
- Bilbo Baggins ( The Hobbit ) - Bilbo begins the story being complacent and rather aimless; as the protagonist, he becomes more heroic (and a better burglar ) during his journey.
- Ebeneezer Scrooge ( A Christmas Carol ) - Ebeneezer is despised for his greed, selfishness, and stinginess at the beginning of the story; after he is shown the consequences of his actions, he becomes more generous and kind.
- Victor Frankenstein ( Frankenstein ) - He becomes blinded by his arrogance and selfishness before later coming to regret his actions.
- Hamlet ( Hamlet ) - Hamlet becomes paralyzed by overthinking and allows resentment to rule his actions.
- Patrick Bateman ( American Psycho ) - Patrick is violent and sadistic, while also suffering from intense insecurity.
- Severus Snape ( Harry Potter ) - Snape is bitter, spiteful, and a bully toward many of his students, despite working for the “good guys” all along.

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Expert Source

Tara Blau Smollen
Presentation & Acting Skills Coach

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Grant Faulkner, MA
Professional Writer

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200+ Negative Emotional, Social, & Behavioral Character Traits

Quick Examples of Negative Character Traits

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Negative Emotional Character Traits

Negative Social Character Traits

Negative Behavioral Character Traits

Negative Cognitive & Motivational Character Traits

Extremely Negative Character Traits

How to Use Negative Character Traits in Writing

Examples of Literary Characters with Notable Flaws

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