Narcissism in Romantic Relationships: Using Communal Activation to Promote Relationship Enhancing Attitudes

Abstract

Background: People with elevated vulnerable narcissism (VN) or grandiose narcissism (GN) trait levels tend to experience greater difficulties in their romantic relationships than their counterparts with lower levels of VN or GN. Although there are no evidence-based approaches to alter the interpersonal behavior of persons with VN or GN traits, experimental research shows that it is possible to produce relationship-enhancing attitudes in people with GN traits through communal activation (CA). Objective: We examined whether a CA manipulation in the context of relationship education improves attitudes that promote romantic relationship health, and whether VN and GN would moderate these associations. Method: Participants (N_women =148, N_men = 71) watched psychoeducational videos on relationships and were randomly assigned to either answer questions about the videos’ content (control group) or to complete CA exercises (experimental group) in addition to questionnaires to measure empathy, criticism, commitment, desire for closeness, and communication (positive interaction, demand/withdraw communication, criticize/defend communication) before and after the experimental manipulation. Results: There was a main effect of condition, such that, relative to the control group, fewer improvements in perceived demand/withdraw communication were observed in the experimental condition. VN, but not GN, moderated the link between condition and commitment, demand/withdraw and criticize/defend communication, such that elevated VN levels predicted the most improvement in commitment, demand/withdraw and criticize/defend communication in the experimental condition. Discussion: We conclude with recommendations to adopt ego-enhancing reinforcement for communal behaviors with clients who endorse GN traits and considering less personally relevant CA exercises with clients who endorse VN traits.

Keywords:

• Interpersonal relations
• family relations
• marital relationships
• personality
• perspective taking

Disclosure statement

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Data Accessibility Statement

The study materials, data and analysis scripts are available from the corresponding authors.

This study was not pre-registered.

JNB and DAS conceptualized the study and designed the experimental materials. JNB performed data collection, data preparation, and data analysis. JNB and DAS wrote the report.

Notes

1 Although neither Campbell et al. (2006) nor Campbell and Foster (2007) specify vulnerable narcissism or grandiose narcissism, based on their cited research it can be inferred that their focus is on grandiose narcissism.

Additional information

Funding

This research was in part supported by grants from the Fahs-Beck Fund for Research and Experimentation, the University of Notre Dame Graduate Student Research Award, and the University of Notre Dame American Dream Grant.

Notes on contributors

Judith N. Biesen

Judith Biesen is an assistant professor in the Department of Mental Health Law & Policy at the University of South Florida. Her research focuses on the use of a wide range of methodological approaches to understand the processes the underlie the co-occurrence of relationship distress and behavioral health in underserved populations as well as the contexts within which they co-occur and contribute to their co-occurrence.

David A. Smith

David Smith is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Notre Dame. His research focuses on the connections between mental illness and social relationships. In particular, he studies the links between depression and marital discord with observational studies of inter-spousal criticism, multi-level modeling of daily diary data, and psychometric investigations.