Narcissism and threatened ego: The relationship between aggression and self-esteem

This study examined how narcissism and feedback affected implicit and explicit self-esteem and aggression. Participants' narcissism was measured using the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI; Raskin & Hall, 1979). Participants were dichotomized into two groups (narcissists and non-narcissists). Narcissists and non-narcissists were randomly assigned to experimental conditions where they received positive, negative or no feedback. Participants' explicit self-esteem was measured with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). Implicit self-esteem was measured with initials preference (Bosson, Swann, & Pennebaker, 2000). The independent variables were narcissism (high or low), feedback (positive, negative, and no feedback) and opportunity for aggression (opportunity vs. no opportunity). The dependent variables were explicit self-esteem, implicit self-esteem and aggression. Analysis of variance showed that narcissists reported higher explicit self-esteem than non-narcissists. Non-narcissists scored lower in explicit self-esteem when they received either positive or negative feedback. Both narcissists and non-narcissists showed more aggression with negative feedback than with positive feedback.