The topic of dark side personality at work has received considerable research attention over the past decade, and both qualitative and quantitative reviews of this field have already been published. To show the relevance of dark personality in the work context, existing reviews have typically focused on systematically discussing the different criteria that have been linked to dark traits (e.g., job performance, work attitudes, leadership emergence, etc.). In contrast, and complementing this earlier work, the current review paper summarizes the available literature on this topic by structuring it in terms of the nature of the relationships studied rather than in terms of the types of outcome variables. Doing so, the focus shifts from "What are the outcomes of dark traits?" to "How are dark traits related to work outcomes?" Scrutinizing the nature of these relationships, we specifically focus on four types of effects (i.e., nonlinear, interactive, differential, and reciprocal) that highlight the complexity of how dark side traits operate in the work context. Structured this way, this review first provides a conceptual underpinning of each of these complex effects, followed by a summary of the empirical literature published over the past 10 years. To conclude, we present an integration of this field, provide suggestions for future research, and highlight concrete assessment challenges.
Narcissism is heavily investigated in psychology, including work and organizational psychology. Despite research underscoring that narcissism has a meaningful state component, there is currently no research available on within-person fluctuations in narcissism at work. The current study explores the role of particular activities that can either enhance or reduce narcissism states while at work. Specifically, the effects of agentic (i.e., directing and achieving) and communal (i.e., relating and coaching) work activities on state narcissism are examined in a sample of 121 supervisors. We assessed the work activities and supervisors' state of narcissism two times a day over a 10-day period. Concurrent and lagged associations were examined using Dynamic Structural Equation Modelling (DSEM). The results first indicated a substantial amount of momentous fluctuation in narcissism, with up to 12% of the variability in supervisors' narcissism scores being situated at the within-person level. Further, two types of work activities (i.e., achieving and coaching) were found to have a positive (enhancing) effect on supervisors' state narcissism. None of the work activities emerged as a factor reducing state narcissism in this study. Implications and future research directions are discussed.
Although interest in within-person variability in grandiose narcissism is growing, measurement tools are lacking that allow studying fluctuations in this personality characteristic in a differentiated manner (i.e., distinguishing narcissistic admiration and rivalry). This study explores whether a measurement approach using the six-item version of the Narcissistic Grandiosity Scale (NGS Rosenthal et al. (2007)) and six additional newly formulated adjectives allows assessing state admiration and rivalry. Structural characteristics and convergent validity of this approach were examined in an experience sampling study in which 114 adults participated, providing state assessments twice a day (total number of observations = 1306). Multilevel bifactor analyses revealed three factors (i.e., one general and two specific factors) at both within- and between-person levels. Further, admiration and rivalry showed a pattern of within-person associations with fluctuations in self-esteem and Big Five states that were consistent with theoretical expectations. Finally, average state admiration and average state rivalry correlated substantively with trait measures of these respective constructs assessed one week prior to the experience sampling design.
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