Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Do Narcissism Levels Affect Conflict Resolution When Their Ego Is Threatened? An Experiment, Laura E. Harper

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The present experimental study, examined the influence of ego-threat on participant aggression levels, and investigated whether Narcissism moderated this relationship. A sample of N= 54 undergraduate participants were randomly assigned to receive either positive or negative feedback on their writing abilities from what they were told was a co-participant, with the negative feedback condition serving as the ego-threat condition. Afterwards, participants responded to a hypothetical conflict scenario involving the imagined co-participant and completed a self-report measure of Narcissism online. Results showed that being assigned to the ego-threat condition resulted in more aggressive responses to the conflict scenario, increased use of …