خودشیفتگی و قطعیت در شرایط تهدید غیرخودپرستی

Punitiveness of overt and covert narcissists was examined in a non-ego-threatening condition. In judging fictitious criminal cases, high scorers in overt narcissism were as punitive as low scorers; this result was independent of crime severity. For covert narcissism, however, high scorers were more punitive toward a serious crime and more lenient toward a mild crime, when compared to low scorers. This study provides pioneering data on narcissists’ punitive judgments in the absence of ego threat, which has been overlooked by previous research. The findings not only support the theoretical distinction between the overt and covert subtypes of narcissism, but also help clarify the meaning of punishment to narcissists.

Despite its origin as a clinical condition, narcissism has received considerable interest from social and personality psychologists in recent years because of its relationship to various social behaviors and personality constructs. In general, the clinical, social and personality perspectives agree that narcissism is characterized by inflated positive self-views and negative views toward others (Besser and Priel, 2010, Campbell et al., 2002 and Dickinson and Pincus, 2003). Such a social perception explains why narcissists score low in empathy measures, and are punitive and unforgiving toward others’ misdeeds (Baumeister et al., 1996, Exline et al., 2004, Munro et al., 2005 and Okada, 2010). This conclusion, however, may be overgeneralized because previous studies have focused solely on ego-threatening conditions and assumed that punishment is driven by retaliative motives only (e.g. Bushman & Baumeister, 1998). In addition, some of these studies have overlooked the distinction between two narcissistic subtypes – overt and covert narcissism (Wink, 1991). To fill this void, the current study examines how overt and covert narcissists perceive and punish wrongdoers in a non-ego-threatening condition.