There Is an “I” in TEAM

Abstract

We investigated narcissism as a moderator of social loafing on a physical performance task. High and low narcissistic individuals twice performed a cycling task in same-sex teams of three: once when identifiability was low; and once when identifiability was high. A significant interaction between narcissism and identifiability was revealed, F(1, 40) = 4.09, p < .05, η² = .09 for performance. Follow-up tests indicated that high narcissists' performance significantly increased with greater identifiability, whereas low narcissists displayed no such performance differences. Results suggested that this effect was due to an increase in narcissists' on-task effort (ratings of perceived exertion and heart rate) when they knew that their performance was to be identified.

Key words:

• Effort
• Group
• Narcissist
• Self-enhancement

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Tim Woodman

We thank associate editor, Diane Wiese-Bjornstal, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful and insightful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. Please address correspondence concerning this article to Tim Woodman, Institute for the Psychology of Elite Performance, Bangor University, Gwynedd LL57 2DG, UK.