Narcissistic and dependent behaviors in the Battle of the Sexes game.

Abstract

We used the 2-person, 2-choice Battle of the Sexes game to model dominant and submissive behaviors in individuals with narcissistic and dependent traits in an online sample. In the Battle of the Sexes, participants share an interest in coordinating an outcome (either A or B). However, one player prefers they coordinate on Outcome A, whereas the other prefers they both coordinate on Outcome B. When provoked by a preemptive commitment (Experiment 1), we found that narcissistic traits were positively associated with dominant behavior, whereas dependent traits were positively associated with submissive behavior. In contrast, we found no association between either narcissistic or dependent traits and behavior in a condition without a preemptive commitment (Experiment 2). These findings are consistent with an interpersonal conceptualization of narcissistic and dependent personality disorders, though only when responding to provocation. These findings support the idea that narcissistic and dependent traits can be successfully modeled using economic games.

Narcissistic and dependent traits and behavior in four archetypal 2-person, 2-choice games

“…They are, however, only partially consistent with previous research examining trait narcissism and dependency in the Battle of the Sexes (BoS) game. This research found that trait narcissism predicted participant defection in the BoS game only when participants were provoked with a preemptive threat from their partner ( 64 ). These results might be reconciled when considering participants’ partners.…”

“…These results might be reconciled when considering participants’ partners. Here, participants were told they were playing with another Prolific participant while Simon and Reed ( 64 ) told participants to imagine they were playing with someone who was very close to them.…”

“…They are also partially consistent with previous research. Simon and Reed ( 64 ) found that trait dependency predicted participant cooperation only when participants were provoked with a preemptive threat from their partner. Here, we found the opposite: trait dependency predicted cooperation only in the no communication condition.…”

“…Results suggest that trait narcissism predicted behaving in accordance with one’s own interest while trait dependency predicted behaving in accordance with the other’s interests. Crucially, these effects were only found when participants were provoked with a message (either a promise to act in accordance with the other’s interests or a threat to act in accordance with one’s own interests) before making their decision ( 64 ).…”

“…Here, we assessed participants’ trait narcissism and dependency and examined their behavioral decisions in four archetypal 2-person, 2-choice games: the one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma (presented here as the Closed Bag Exchange) ( 52 ), Chicken ( 53 , 54 ), Leader ( 65 ); and Hero ( 52 ) games. Based on previous literature suggesting that personality pathology is evoked in response to provocation ( 64 , 66 ) each game was played in one of three communication conditions. In the first condition, participants received no message from their purported partner.…”