Reducing Narcissistic Aggression by Buttressing Self-Esteem: An Experimental Field Study

TLDR

Narcissistic individuals are prone to become aggressive when their egos are threatened. The study aimed to test whether a self‑affirmation intervention could reduce narcissistic aggression by attenuating ego‑protective motivations. A sample of 405 young adolescents (mean age = 13.9 years) was randomly assigned to a short self‑affirmation writing task that encouraged reflection on personally important values or to a control writing task. The self‑affirmation writing assignment lowered narcissistic aggression for up to a week—about 400 times the intervention’s duration—showing that buttressing self‑esteem can effectively reduce aggression in at‑risk youth.

Abstract

Narcissistic individuals are prone to become aggressive when their egos are threatened. We report a randomized field experiment that tested whether a social-psychological intervention designed to lessen the impact of ego threat reduces narcissistic aggression. A sample of 405 young adolescents (mean age = 13.9 years) were randomly assigned to complete either a short self-affirmation writing assignment (which allowed them to reflect on their personally important values) or a control writing assignment. We expected that the self-affirmation would temporarily attenuate the ego-protective motivations that normally drive narcissists' aggression. As expected, the self-affirmation writing assignment reduced narcissistic aggression for a period of a school week, that is, for a period up to 400 times the duration of the intervention itself. These results provide the first empirical demonstration that buttressing self-esteem (as opposed to boosting self-esteem) can be effective at reducing aggression in at-risk youth.