The Relationship Between Covert Narcissism And Aggression In Senior High School Students

Over the past few decades，increased attention has beenpaid to narcissism in the western world. the link betweennarcissism measured by the NPI and aggression has beenextensively documented. recently, there has been anincrease in the studies distinguishing between overt andcovert narcissism. researchers concluded that aggression ismainly associated with overt narcissism. Previous studieshave revealed that NPI scores predicted physical aggressionand verbal aggression. the link between narcissism andaggression would be stronger in certain situations. It wasshown that narcissism increased aggression or anger in thesocial rejection conditions but not in the control or socialacceptance conditions. From these results, researchersconcluded that aggression is mainly associated withgrandiose narcissism. However, few studies have examinedthe relationship between covert narcissism and aggression.Given that overt and covert narcissism share somecharacteristics, for example, a sense of entitlement and thetendency to disregard others, it was anticipated that covertnarcissism would predict aggression just as overtnarcissism had been shown to do. The purpose of this studywas to examine the relationships between covert narcissism and aggression in sample groups of senior high schoolstudents.In Study 1, the relationships between covert narcissismand the four facets of aggression (physical aggression,verbal aggression, anger, and hostility) were examined.Physical aggression and verbal aggression represent thetendency to respond to provocation with direct forms ofaggressive behavior. Anger and hostility represent theaffective and cognitive components of aggression.In Study 2, the relationship between covert narcissismand aggression under a social rejection condition wasexamined. Participants were randomly assigned to one oftwo conditions: rejection condition and acceptancecondition. In this study, aggression was measured byallowing participants to evaluate another individual in ahypothetical situation. The participants were asked toevaluate another person’s contribution to hypothetical grouptasks; they were told that their evaluation could affect theother person’s course grade. Because the evaluations werenot reported directly to the target, the negative evaluationscould be an indicator of indirect aggression.The results are as follows:In study 1,covert narcissism predicted higher levels ofanger and hostility but did not predict physical and verbalaggression. In study 2,Individuals with higher levels ofcovert narcissism would feel more hostility when they weretold that Basically no one likes to associate with them. andthus, they would tend to more negatively evaluate a personwho provoked them. These results suggest that covert narcissism could increase specific facets of aggression andincrease aggression in specific situations.