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Narcissists often fail to abide by norms for polite social conduct, but why? The current study addressed this issue by exploring reasons why narcissists use more offensive language (i.e., profanity) than non-narcissists. In this study, 602 participants completed a survey in which they responded on a measure of trait narcissism, rated several offensive words on the degree to which the words were attention-grabbing and offensive, and then indicated how frequently they used the words. Consistent with the idea that narcissists use offensive language to gain attention, narcissists were incrementally more likely to use offensive language if they perceived such language to be highly attention-grabbing, and they were also more likely to perceive offensive language as attention-grabbing. Consistent with the idea that narcissists use more offensive language because they are less sensitive to the offensiveness of the language, an additional mediation analysis showed that narcissists perceived offensive language as less offensive than non-narcissists, a perception that, in turn, enhanced use of offensive language. Thus, this study provides evidence for two mechanisms that underlie narcissists’ frequent use of offensive language, and broadly contributes to the understudied issue of why narcissists violate social-etiquette norms.

Narcissists seem to disregard social-etiquette norms. For example, narcissists are more likely to brag (Buss & Chiodo, 1991), behave aggressively toward others (Barry et al., 2006, Bushman and Baumeister, 1998, Stucke and Sporer, 2002 and Twenge and Campbell, 2003), and use offensive language (DeWall et al., 2011 and Holtzman et al., 2010). Although it is well-known that narcissists are prone to break social-etiquette norms, the underlying causes for this tendency remain largely unclear. One possibility is that narcissists break social-etiquette norms as a means of grabbing people’s attention (the “attention-seeking” hypothesis; Buss and Chiodo, 1991 and DeWall et al., 2011). An additional possibility is that narcissists, for various reasons, simply perceive such norm violations as less offensive than non-narcissists (the “insensitivity” hypothesis; Collins & Stukas, 2008). The present paper seeks to add some clarity to this issue in the context of the link between narcissism and offensive-language use (DeWall et al., 2011 and Holtzman et al., 2010). Specifically, we explore the following two, non-competing explanations for why narcissists (vs. non-narcissists) are more likely to use offensive language: (a) narcissists use offensive language more often because offensive language represents a means for narcissists to satisfy their goal to be the center of attention (e.g., “Everyone, look at me!”); and (b) narcissists use offensive language more frequently because they are less aware that such language is offensive (e.g., “No one is really too offended by swearing.”). To date, two studies have directly investigated the link between narcissism and offensive-language use. In one exploratory study (Holtzman et al., 2010), participants carried a device that intermittently recorded segments of naturalistic speech for four days, and then they responded on a series of personality questionnaires. Among other things, the researchers found that narcissists used offensive words more frequently than non-narcissists. Nevertheless, this study did not posit a theoretical explanation for this finding. A follow-up study examined whether narcissists use offensive language more frequently as a means of attracting attention to themselves (DeWall et al., 2011). In this study, participants responded on a narcissism questionnaire, and then they wrote three essays about themselves. DeWall and colleagues (2011) hypothesized that narcissists tend to use either offensive language or first-person singular pronouns as a means of grabbing attention. The data conformed to this hypothesis: in cases where narcissists used relatively few first-person singular pronouns, they used relatively more offensive language. The authors concluded that narcissists tend to use offensive language as a means of grabbing attention. Although this “attention-seeking” explanation seems plausible, it is also plausible that heightened self-awareness (as indexed by the use of singular pronouns; Davis & Brock, 1975) reduced narcissists’ antisocial orientation (e.g., Prentice-Dunn and Rogers, 1982, Scheier et al., 1974 and Zimbardo, 1970) and, in turn, reduced narcissists’ use of offensive language. With this alternative interpretation in play, there is a need for additional testing of the attention-seeking hypothesis. One goal of the present research is to provide some novel tests of this hypothesis. An additional possibility is that narcissists use offensive language more frequently because they perceive the words as less offensive (the “insensitivity” hypothesis). For example, because narcissism is negatively correlated with empathy and perspective-taking (Watson et al., 1984 and Watson and Morris, 1991), it is possible that narcissists are less aware of people’s offended reactions and therefore underestimate the offensiveness of offensive language. In addition, some researchers (Collins and Stukas, 2008 and Sedikides et al., 2002) have suggested that narcissists may become insensitive and underplay the offensiveness of their actions because such insensitivity can act to facilitate their aggressive pursuit for admiration. To address the insensitivity explanation for the narcissism-profanity link, the present research explored the hypothesis that narcissists use offensive language more frequently because they are insensitive to its offensiveness. In this study, participants responded on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI; Raskin & Terry, 1988), and then they rated several words (offensive words and “control” words) on each of three dimensions: frequency-of-use, attention-grabbing and offensiveness (for relations between these dimensions, see Table 1). This design allowed us to assess some predictions generated from the attention-seeking and insensitivity hypotheses. In line with the attention-seeking hypothesis ( DeWall et al., 2011), we predicted that narcissists (vs. non-narcissists) would indicate that offensive language was more attention-grabbing. For example, because narcissists place greater emphasis on attention-seeking goals ( Buss and Chiodo, 1991 and DeWall et al., 2011), and because goals increase recognition of opportunities to fulfill the goal (e.g., Atkinson and Birch, 1970, Lewin, 1926 and Shah, 2003), narcissists should be particularly likely to recognize offensive-language use as a means for getting attention. Furthermore – also in line with the attention-seeking hypothesis – we predicted that narcissists (vs. non-narcissists) would indicate using offensive words more frequently than non-narcissists, but that this relation would become less pronounced when individuals viewed offensive words as less attention-grabbing. Because goals enhance the production of only those behaviors that are effective for satisfying the goals ( Atkinson and Birch, 1970, Greenwald, 1982 and McClelland, 1985), it follows that when offensive-word use is perceived as an ineffective means to get attention, the effect of narcissism would be reduced. In line with the insensitivity hypothesis (e.g., Collins and Stukas, 2008 and Sedikides et al., 2002), we examined whether narcissists would rate offensive words as less offensive and whether this lowered sensitivity would mediate the relationship between narcissism and frequency of offensive-word use.