Let Go of Your (Inflated) Ego: Caring more about Others Reduces Narcissistic Tendencies

Abstract

Narcissists are known for having excessively positive self-views, but an equally defining characteristic of narcissism may be a disregard of other people. Could encouraging people to care more about others, or feel more connected to them, reduce narcissism? We describe a series of studies demonstrating that a more communal focus on others reduces narcissistic tendencies. In particular, repeating communal selfstatements (i.e., "I am a caring person"), recalling a time when one was caring, feeling empathy, focusing on monetary expenditures (which increases a sense of dependence on others), and interdependent selfconstrual all situationally reduce narcissism. These effects occur on a small scale but are significant because they establish that communal focus causes changes in narcissism. They also suggest that narcissism may have a state-like or context-dependent component, fluctuating across time and situations. Everyone may have the propensity to be narcissistic, but caring more about others may help to curb narcissism.Steve Jobs, co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc., was a great innovator and widely influential. He was also likely narcissistic (Henriques, 2012;Nadler, 2012;Thompson, 2011). He was noted for being manipulative, arrogant, self-absorbed, and pre-occupied with his own sense of importance and brilliance. Professional golfer Tiger Woods might also be narcissistic (Cosico, 2010). He has similarly been described as self-absorbed, arrogant, and obsessed with admiration, power, and attention. In addition to such grandiosity and self-absorption, Jobs and Woods may be notable for their ill-treatment of others. Despite being one of the world's wealthiest people, Jobs was criticized for his lack of charity. He insisted that he could do more good putting money into his own company, Apple Inc., than by donating to charitable organizations. He was also known for bullying employees and lacking compassion. Tiger Woods had multiple extra-marital affairs and described his sexual conquests as motivated by power and the excitement of using women as sex objects. As these examples illustrate, although narcissists are known for having excessively positive self-views, an equally defining characteristic of narcissism may be a disregard of other people. In this article, we explore this aspect of narcissism and the possibility that encouraging people to care more about others, or to feel more connected to them, can reduce narcissistic tendencies. Narcissism and Lack of Concern for Others

Too arrogant for their own good? Why and when narcissists dismiss advice

“…First, narcissists' positive view of the self implies that narcissists (a) think they are better than others (John & Robins, 1994), (b) have inflated beliefs about their skills compared to objective measures or others' ratings (Farwell & Wohlwend-Lloyd, 1998;Judge, Lepine, & Rich, 2006), (c) believe they are special and unique (Emmons, 1984;Kubarych, Deary, & Austin, 2004), and (d) have high levels of entitlement and selfishness (Campbell, Bush, Brunell, & Shelton, 2005;Miller, Price, & Campbell, 2011b). Second, narcissists tend to disregard others and are concerned with possessing agentic (e.g., competence) rather than communal (e.g., friendliness, empathy) characteristics (Jordan, Giacomin, & Kopp, 2014). Third, narcissists utilize self-enhancement strategies to regulate their self (Campbell, Hoffman, Campbell, & Marchisio, 2011).…”

“…This is because cognitive, affective, and attitudinal states have in general larger effects on behavior than their corresponding traits (e.g., Judge, Scott, & Ilies, 2006). Study 2 is also inspired by recent research suggesting that narcissism can function as a state that fluctuates across contexts and can be manipulated Jordan et al, 2014), which is based on context-dependent models of personality (Fleeson & Jayawickreme, 2015;Mischel & Shoda, 1995). As with Study 1, in Study 2 we tested Hypotheses 1 and 2.…”

The Narcissism in Situations Framework: Person and Situation Effects on State Narcissism

“…Referring to the narcissism literature, there is also interesting evidence that narcissists show lower narcissism levels when contexts are more communal-oriented and/or focus on social interdependency (Jordan, Giacomin, & Kopp, 2014). Adding to that, Twenge and Campbell (2003) showed that narcissists expressed less arousal when they felt acknowledged than when they felt rejected which might be related to a reduced need to regulate oneself.…”

“…Contradicting the findings of Giacomin and Jordan (2016) our results showed that positive interactions (i.e., positive disagreements, Study 2) were associated with lower levels of state narcissistic entitlement in both studies, presumably because basic needs (autonomy, relatedness, competence) and according agentic goals were met temporarily so that the positive self-views can be less enhanced or protected at this specific time point. Although speculative, this finding might be useful for future research on reductions of narcissism that often stresses the importance of triggering communal aspects in narcissists (Giacomin & Jordan, 2013;Jordan et al, 2014). Examining the "ideal constellations of needs"…”

“…Although we believe that the item order in our experience sampling questionnaire increased the salience of the situations, future research projects should enlighten this issue by experimental designs. Only with standardized manipulations of realistic daily-life feedback (e.g., positive vs. negative vs. neutral feedback) we can examine the impact of the subjective valence of such feedback on self-regulation motives and further, on state narcissism (see also Giacomin & Jordan, 2014).…”