How do narcissists get what they want from their romantic partners? The connections that narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry have with influence strategies

Narcissism and mate retention behaviors: What strategies do narcissistic individuals use to maintain their romantic relationships?

“…These results are consistent with the view that narcissistic rivalry is actually a blend of the grandiose and vulnerable expressions narcissism. Further, this pattern is consistent with the results of previous studies that have consistently shown narcissistic rivalry to be associated with a tendency to rely on aversive interpersonal strategies to influence romantic partners (Sauls et al, 2019) or pursue status in the broader social environment (Zeigler-Hill et al, 2019). Taken together, these results suggest that narcissistic rivalry may be linked with an array of indicators of poor relationship functioning.…”

“…That is, we expected narcissistic rivalry to be linked with the use of antagonistic strategies and coercion-based tactics to prevent romantic partners from committing infidelity or defecting from the relationship that are similar in some respects to the approaches that are adopted for managing their own feelings of grandiosity (e.g., derogating others). This prediction was also consistent with the results of previous studies showing that narcissistic rivalry is associated with a wide variety of negative romantic outcomes including unflattering perceptions of current relationship partners (e.g., Wurst et al, 2017; Zeigler-Hill et al, 2020) as well as the tendency to employ intimidation or coercion when attempting to influence their romantic partners (Sauls et al, 2019) or gain status in the broader social environment (Zeigler-Hill et al, 2019).…”

“…Narcissism has been found to be associated with various cost-inflicting behaviors including jealousy induction, intrasexual threats, punishment of infidelity threats, and violence against potential rivals (Jonason et al, 2010). Narcissism has also been found to be associated with the tendency to induce jealousy in romantic partners (Tortoriello et al, 2017) and the use of aversive or manipulative strategies to satisfy one’s goals in romantic relationships (e.g., Sauls et al, 2019). It is possible that these aversive behaviors are actually somewhat misguided and selfish attempts to maintain these relationships rather than indicating a lack of interest or concern about these relationships.…”

“…We were uncertain about the connection that narcissistic admiration would have with cost-inflicting behaviors. The reason for our uncertainty was that narcissistic admiration has been shown to be associated with manipulative influence strategies in romantic relationships (e.g., Sauls et al, 2019) as well as the use of dominance-based strategies for pursuing status (Zeigler-Hill et al, 2019). These results suggest that narcissistic admiration may be characterized by a willingness to use aversive strategies to achieve interpersonal goals if other approaches are unlikely to be successful.…”

“… 1. The associations that narcissistic personality features have with certain outcomes are sometimes moderated by gender (e.g., Sauls et al, 2019). As a consequence, preliminary analyses for each study included gender as a potential moderator of the associations that narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry had with mate retention behaviors.…”