The relationship between narcissism and acceptance of violence revealed through a game designed to induce social ostracism

ABSTRACT

Research shows that social exclusion may provoke aggression, especially in those who exhibit high levels of sensitivity to rejection, which has been related to aspects of narcissism. Few studies have investigated how individuals with high levels of narcissism react to social exclusion. In two experiments, we created and tested the effectiveness of a new game, Cyberpass, and investigated whether exclusion in this game increased positive attitudes toward violence in participants with high levels of narcissism. Cyberpass was effective in influencing feelings of lack of acceptance, and feelings of exclusion. Narcissism was correlated with less boredom and stronger feelings of rejection in the exclusion condition in Cyberpass. The Entitlement/Exploitativeness facet of narcissism was correlated with higher acceptance of violence in the exclusion condition. Results indicate that narcissistic individuals may be more supportive of violence after social exclusion but in order to experience this, they may require more explicit cues of ostracism.

KEYWORDS:

• Narcissism
• adaptive
• maladaptive
• exclusion
• attitudes
• violence

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://osf.io/5ufj6.

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://osf.io/5ufj6.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Victoria Blinkhorn

Dr. Victoria Blinkhorn is a Lecturer in Forensic Psychology at Liverpool John Moores University. She obtained her PhD in 2018 from the University of Liverpool titled 'Narcissism in females: Relationships to attitudes towards violence, sexual coercion, and offending behaviour in a non-forensic sample'.

Minna Lyons

Dr. Minna Lyons is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Liverpool. She has broad interests in evolutionary behavioural sciences, with a specific focus on investigating potential evolutionary adaptiveness of personality traits that have traditionally been viewed as pathological. Recently, much of her research has concentrated on personality (“the Dark Triad”) and sexually coercive behaviours.

Elizabeth S. Collier

Dr. Elizabeth S. Collier is a Researcher and Project Manager for RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. She obtained her PhD in 2018 from the University of Liverpool.