5,129
Views
20
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Original Articles

Psychological Skills Do Not Always Help Performance: The Moderating Role of Narcissism

, , , &
Pages 316-325 | Received 27 Apr 2012, Accepted 15 Sep 2012, Published online: 17 Apr 2013
 

Abstract

Psychological skills are typically viewed as beneficial to performance in competition. Conversely, narcissists appear to thrive in competitive environments so should not need psychological skills to the same degree as less narcissistic individuals. To investigate this moderating hypothesis high-standard ice-skaters completed measures of narcissism, psychological skills, and anxiety before performing their competition routine during training. A week later, participants performed the same routine in competition. Performance was operationalized as the difference between competition and training scores. Moderated regression analyses revealed that narcissism moderated the relationship between psychological skills and performance. Psychological skill effectiveness depends on an individual's degree of narcissism.

Notes

1. Although the 6.0 judging system has now been replaced by the International Skating Union (ISU) Code of Points system, these data were collected and analyzed when the 6.0 judging system was still used in competitive ice skating.

2. Previous research has investigated sex effects in narcissism and has produced equivocal results (e.g., see Morf & Rhodewalt, [2001] and Wallace & Baumeister, [2002]). In addition, given the unequal split of males and females in our sample, we re-analyzed the data standardizing for sex. As the original results were reliably replicated, the sex findings are not reported.

3. We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

Reprints and Corporate Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

To request a reprint or corporate permissions for this article, please click on the relevant link below:

Academic Permissions

Please note: Selecting permissions does not provide access to the full text of the article, please see our help page How do I view content?

Obtain permissions instantly via Rightslink by clicking on the button below:

If you are unable to obtain permissions via Rightslink, please complete and submit this Permissions form. For more information, please visit our Permissions help page.