Sexual Narcissism and Infidelity in Early Marriage

Abstract

There is theoretical reason to believe that narcissism is associated with infidelity. Yet, studies that have examined this association have yielded inconsistent results. Given that these inconsistencies may have emerged because prior studies used global assessments of narcissism that do not capture the extent to which the components of narcissism are activated in the sexual domain, the current research drew from two longitudinal studies of 123 married couples to examine the extent to which sexual narcissism predicted marital infidelity. Consistent with the idea that narcissism predicts sexual behavior when activated in the sexual domain, own sexual narcissism was positively associated with infidelity, controlling for own marital and sexual satisfaction, own globally-assessed narcissism, partner globally-assessed narcissism, and partner sexual narcissism. Helping to explain why this association emerged, further analyses demonstrated that it was driven by all four facets of sexual narcissism—sexual exploitation, grandiose sense of sexual skill, sexual entitlement (Study 1 only), and lack of sexual empathy (husbands only). Additionally, although partner sexual narcissism was unrelated to infidelity on average, partners’ grandiose sense of sexual skill and partners’ sexual entitlement (Study 2 only) were positively associated with infidelity, and partners’ lack of sexual empathy was negatively associated with infidelity (Study 2 only). These findings highlight the benefits of using domain-specific measures of sexual narcissism in research on sexual behavior and the benefits of using domain-specific measures of personality more generally.

A infidelidade conjugal como porta-voz da complexidade relacional: revisão de literatura

“…O narcisismo está positivamente associado a ser mais permissivo em relação ao sexo casual, e isso está associado a maior probabilidade de infidelidade. Os narcisistas mantêm crenças relativamente positivas em relação às suas habilidades, podendo levá-los a pensar que parceiros alternativos aceitarão e se beneficiarão de seus avanços sexuais, assim como apresentam altos níveis de vulnerabilidade e baixos níveis de empatia, características que podem levá-los a ser mais enganosos e sentirem menos remorso, além de apresentar menor nível de compromisso nos relacionamentos 15 .…”

Linguistic Markers of Narcissism: An Exploratory LIWC Analysis of 15 Samples

“…First, consistent with empirical research (e.g., Holtzman, et al, 2010;Sumner, et al, 2012) and theory (Buss & Shackelford, 1997;Foster, Shrira, & Campbell, 2006;Jonason, Li, Webster, & Schmitt, 2009), narcissism was associated with using more sexual words. The idea is that narcissistic people will use sexual language to create a sexualized environment (McNulty & Widman, 2014), perhaps as a means to signaling their own sexual availability or to prime sexual concepts in the minds of sexually-available others. In short, this linguistic result makes sense theoretically (Holtzman, in press), it contributes to a blossoming literature on narcissism and sexual behavior (Dufner, Rauthmann, Czarna, & Denissen, 2013), and it seems like a fruitful area for further study.…”

The “other” side of infidelity: The experience of the “other” partner, anxious love, and implications for practitioners

“…Infidelity is also positively correlated with own sexual narcissism, while negatively correlated with own sexual satisfaction in marriage (McNulty & Widman, 2014). Additionally, people with narcissism tend to be popular at first sight (Back, Schmukle, & Egloff, 2010) and would not necessarily struggle to find "other" mates with whom to be involved.…”