Narcissism and unprovoked aggression

Abstract

It is widely accepted that narcissists become aggressive when they experience ego-threat. However, there is surprisingly little empirical research on the relationship between narcissism and aggression. Equivocal findings suggest that aggression in narcissists either occurs only in response to provocation, or regardless of provocation. One-hundred and thirty-seven collegiate men completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory followed by a sham aggression paradigm, which afforded them the opportunity shock, or refrain entirely from shocking an ostensible opponent confederate. Participants were identified as "unprovoked aggressors," "retaliatory aggressors," or "nonaggressors" contingent on when and if they chose to administer electrical shocks to the confederate. Results indicated that participants who were high on narcissistic traits were more likely to be unprovoked aggressors than their low narcissism counterparts. Results are discussed in relation to threatened egotism theory and call for more research on narcissism, aggression, and the moderating effect of provocation.

A test of the construct validity of the Elemental Psychopathy Assessment scores in a community sample of adults.

“…This finding suggests that EPA Emotional Stability might be more strongly related to psychopathy scores such as Erratic Lifestyle once it is no longer associated with a greater degree of impulse control. experimental literature documenting positive relations between narcissism and aggression (Reidy, Foster, & Zeichner, 2010), particularly behavior that follows some form of ego threat (e.g., Bushman & Baumeister, 1998;Twenge & Campbell, 2003).…”

Narcissism, Low Self-Control, and Violence Among a Nationally Representative Sample

“…Importantly, however, not all research supports the proposition that narcissism is only associated with violence when a narcissistic individual is provoked (Barry et al, 2007;Centifanti et al, 2013;Reidy, Foster, & Zeichner, 2010;washburn et al, 2004). For example, washburn et al (2004) determined that narcissism is associated with proactive (i.e., unprovoked) displays of aggression among young adolescents.…”

Proactive and Reactive Aggression are Associated with Different Physiological and Personality Profiles

“…Despite the robustness of the aforementioned findings, there is significant overlap between proactive and reactive aggression. For example, psychopathic traits among imprisoned males are also related to reactive aggression in response to ego threats (Cale & Lilienfeld, 2006), while some narcissistic traits have been linked to unprovoked aggression during an experimental task among males in a community sample (Reidy, Foster, & Zeichner, 2010).…”

“…Thus, the institutionalized nature of Muñoz et al's sample could have been a confound leaving unanswered whether SCR is differentially related to proactive or reactive aggression. An additional gap in this literature is that studies linking interpersonal/affective psychopathic traits to proactive aggression (e.g., Cornell et al, 1996;Woodworth & Porter, 2002), have not accounted for narcissistic traits also linked to unprovoked aggression among men (c.f., Reidy et al, 2010), or VMPFC functioning associated with callousness in male samples (Lotze et al, 2007). Thus, studies assessing how limbic and VMPFC functioning, as well as narcissistic and psychopathic traits interact to influence proactive aggression are needed.…”