Agentic narcissism, communal narcissism, and prosociality.

Abstract

Grandiose narcissism and prosociality are important topics in personality and social psychology, but research on their interplay is lacking. We present a first large-scale, systematic, and multimethod investigation linking the two. In 2 studies (N 1 ϭ 688, N 2 ϭ 336), we assessed grandiose narcissism comprehensively (i.e., agentic and communal narcissism) and examined its relations with instantiations of prosociality, namely, objective prosociality (actual behavior in Study 1; round-robin informant-reports in a real-life setting in Study 2) and subjective prosociality (self-perceptions in Studies 1 and 2). We obtained a consistent set of results. Agentic narcissism was related to lower objective prosociality and lower subjective prosociality. Communal narcissism, by contrast, was unrelated to objective prosociality, but was related to higher subjective prosociality. Additionally, we tested for prosociality selfenhancement among agentic and communal narcissists. Agentic narcissists evinced the same (and modest) level of prosociality self-enhancement as their non-narcissistic counterparts. Communal narcissists, by contrast, evinced substantial levels of prosociality self-enhancement, whereas their nonnarcissistic counterparts did not enhance their prosociality at all. We discuss implications of the findings for the literature on narcissism and antisociality, and for the concept of prosocial personality.

Self-Enhancement and Psychological Adjustment: A Meta-Analytic Review

“…Consistent with prior research, we operationalized communal SE in terms of Gebauer, Sedikides, et al’s (2012) Communal Narcissism Inventory (following Gebauer, Sedikides, et al, 2012; Nehrlich, Gebauer, Sedikides, & Schoel, in press), Crowne and Marlowe’s (1960) Social Desirability Scale (following Paulhus, 2002; Paulhus & Trapnell, 2008), Hathaway and McKinley’s (1989) Lie Scale from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Questionnaire (following Paulhus, 2002; Paulhus & Trapnell, 2008), Eysenck and Eysenck’s (1964) Lie Scale from the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (following Paulhus, 2002; Paulhus & Trapnell, 2008), Paulhus’s (1988) Impression Management Scale from the Balanced Inventory of Socially Desirable Responding (following Paulhus, 2002; Paulhus & Trapnell, 2008), and self-serving social comparisons as well as inflated self-evaluations pertaining to warmth and morality (following Abele et al, 2016; Campbell et al, 2002).…”

Seeking a Common Framework for Research on Narcissism: An Attempt to Integrate the Different Faces of Narcissism within the Circumplex of Personality Metatraits

“…Indeed, empirical results corroborate this claim, as whenever explicit communal self‐views are strongly correlated with communal narcissism, implicit communal self‐views are not (Fatfouta et al, ; Fatfouta & Schröder‐Abé, ). Whenever communal narcissism is positively related to self‐viewed prosociality, it is unrelated to objective prosociality as assessed by actual behaviour and other informant reports in real‐life settings (Nehrlich, Gebauer, Sedikides, & Schoel, ), and moreover, the neuropsychological reactions do not match communal narcissists behaviour (Yang et al, ). Because our study was based solely on explicit self‐reports, the presence of communal narcissism in the upper quadrant of the circumplex is not surprising; however, if the current study used implicit or objective assessments of communal narcissism, we would expect it to be located near the Delta‐Minus/Sensation Seeking metatrait.…”

Transformational Leader or Narcissist? How Grandiose Narcissists Can Create and Destroy Organizations and Institutions

“…A series of studies showed that grandiose narcissists were less generous and less willing to help others than did non-narcissists. 65 Worse yet, employees working for narcissistic leaders are more likely to withhold information, engage in shirking, absenteeism, and even sabotage. 66 There are estimates that these counter-productive behaviors may cost firms more than $20 billion annually.…”