The Role of Ego-threat in the Aggressive Behavior of Narcissistic Individuals

Abstract

Highly narcissistic individuals are prone to be more aggressive when their ego is threatened. This quantitative cross-sectional study tested whether ego-threat moderates the link between narcissism and overt aggression. Narcissism, overt aggression, trait self-esteem and ego-threat were measured in a sample of 565 young adolescents (mean age = 12.9) using peer-report and self-report questionnaires. It was expected that narcissism would be associated with more overt aggression only when individuals experience ego-threat. Our regression analyses indicated that being a boy predicted higher levels of overt aggression. Furthermore, trait self-esteem was found to be negatively associated with overt aggression. Even though we did find that narcissism was positively associated with overt aggression, we found no significant effect for the interaction between ego-threat and narcissism in predicting overt aggression. Our findings contradict the view that ego-threat is a moderator of the link between narcissism and overt aggression.