Narcissism and mate retention behaviors: What strategies do narcissistic individuals use to maintain their romantic relationships?

Abstract

The present studies examined the possibility that narcissistic admiration (assertive self-enhancement and self-promotion) and narcissistic rivalry (self-protection and self-defense) would have divergent associations with benefit-provisioning and cost-inflicting mate retention behaviors. Study 1 ( N = 625) revealed that narcissistic admiration was associated with benefit-provisioning behaviors, whereas narcissistic rivalry was associated with cost-inflicting behaviors. Study 2 ( N = 349) showed that narcissistic admiration was positively associated with cost-inflicting behaviors when levels of suspicious jealousy were relatively high. Study 3 ( N = 373) revealed that both narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry had positive indirect associations with cost-inflicting behaviors through the dominance-based orientation toward status. However, these aspects of narcissism had divergent indirect associations with cost-inflicting behaviors through the prestige-based orientation such that this indirect association was negative for narcissistic admiration but positive for narcissistic rivalry. These results demonstrate the similarities and important differences between narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry with regard to the use of particular mate retention behaviors.