Untangling the associations that narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry have with agency, communion, and romantic commitment

Abstract

The Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Concept (NARC; Back et al., 2013) proposes two strategies for maintaining a grandiose self-image. These dimensions are positively correlated, but often have divergent associations with outcomes. When used simultaneously to predict outcome variables, suppression effects often occur. We examine suppression effects for narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry in four samples (total N = 2106), examining their bivariate distribution and transforming the predictors to emphasize common and unique sources of variance. High composite NARC (high narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry) was associated with more positive self-perceptions of agency, slightly more negative self-perceptions of communality, and less romantic commitment. Domination of the narcissistic admiration pathway relative to the narcissistic rivalry pathway predicted more positive self-perceptions.