Narcissism's Effect on Interpersonal Regulation

Contemporary integrative interpersonal theory (CIIT) provides a framework for understanding how the self, others, emotions, and behavior are integrated in interpersonal situations. A key process within an interpersonal interaction is that of emotion regulation, whereby an individual navigates their own emotional reactivity in response to the interpersonal field. The current study examines how narcissism is associated with interpersonal (dys)regulation and the corresponding interpersonal situations likely to set the dynamic (dys)regulatory processes in motion. To replicate and extend findings from Wright and colleagues (2017), we examined, in four samples with pre-registered analyses (Total N = 1,022), whether narcissism amplifies the link between perceptions of the interacting partner’s behavior and one’s own negative emotions. Leveraging multi-level structural equation modeling, results revealed that narcissistic vulnerability most consistently amplified the link between perceiving the interacting partner as dominant and one’s own negative affect (partial replication of Wright et al., 2017). We also found that narcissistic vulnerability amplified the link between perceiving the interacting partner as cold and one’s own negative affect. These results suggest that people who are perceived as interpersonal dominant and/or cold pose a threat to narcissistic goals and that such a threat is likely to lead to emotion dysregulation for people high in narcissism (particularly people high in narcissistic vulnerability). Points of convergence and divergence with findings from Wright and colleagues (2017) are discussed. The current study elucidates important future directions for examining the social contexts likely to lead to dysregulation in individuals high in narcissism.