Contact: Summary: Narcissists act aggressively toward others who give them negative, ego-threatening feedback (Bushman & Baumeister, 1998) In our lab we are attempting to reduce narcissistic aggression by creating “unit- relations” (Heider, 1958) with potential targets of aggression Introduction: 1) Narcissism and aggression link: Contrary to popular opinion,research evidence indicates that it is people with inflated self-views, not low-self esteem, who are likely to aggress after an ego threat, especially toward the person who threatened them (e.g. Bushman & Baumeister, 1998) 2) Expanding the self: Unit relations Unit relations (Heider, 1958) are relationships built on a sense that the self and other are overlapped on a key dimension Social cognition research has shown that perceptions of similarity and psychological overlap are very malleable and can be temporarily altered in a single lab session For example, it is possible to create unit relationships with something as simple as a shared birthday between two people (Miller, Downs, & Prentice, 1998) The current study: Combining 1) and 2) We tested the hypothesis that narcissistic aggression after an ego threat would be reduced if participants believed they shared a similarity with the person who threatened their ego Method: Participants: Participants were 260 college students (67 men, 193 women) Design: Birthday Status: Same or different Provocateur: Partner (direct aggression) or experimenter (displaced aggression) Narcissistic entitlement: Scale from 0 (low) to 6 (high) Part 1: Web survey In what participants believed was an unrelated pretest, we measured their: a) self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1965) e.g. “I take a positive attitude toward myself” b) narcissism (Raskin & Terry, 1988) e.g. “If I ruled the world it would be a better place” Part 2: Laboratory study Participants were told that the study was about first impressions and that they would be working with a purported “partner” in another room They were given a demographic form that indicated their partner had the same or a different birthday than they had They then wrote an essay on a controversial topic, which was evaluated negatively by either their partner or the experimenter  “This is one of the worst essays I have read!” Finally, participants were given a chance to aggress by blasting their partner with loud noise through a pair of headphones Results: Noise blast duration and intensity were combined to measure aggression; data were analyzed using hierarchical regression 3-way interaction between birthday status, provocateur, and narcissistic entitlement, t(259)=1.96, p=.05 To interpret it, 2-way interactions between birthday status and narcissistic entitlement were examined separately 1) Direct aggression: as expected, 2-way interaction was significant (Fig. 1a) a) different birthday: narcissistic entitlement positively related to aggression, F(1,251)=7.36, p=.00, r=.21 b) same birthday: narcissistic entitlement not related to aggression, F<1, r= ) Displaced aggression: as expected, 2-way interaction was not significant (Fig. 1b) Conclusions: Past research has consistently found that narcissists behave aggressively when they suffer a blow to their ego, but in a single lab session we were able to eliminate this effect using a simple unit- relation manipulation Replicating past research, narcissists were especially aggressive toward provocateurs who had different birthdays In contrast, narcissists were not aggressive toward provocateurs who had the same birthday Limitations: This research was not conducted in a field setting, however we believe it has the potential to greatly impact violence prevention in the real world by specifying conditions that reduce ego-related aggression More direct evidence is needed of the process involved: is our effect driven by simple self-other similarity or liking / attraction toward more similar others? Future Directions: “Just like me” Similarity to self reduces aggression in narcissists Brad J. Bushman, Sara Konrath, & W. Keith Campbell Source: periferica.org/numero05/toon-voss.jpg Figure 1b: Displaced aggression toward partner after experimenter’s threatening feedback Figure 1a: Direct aggression toward partner after partner’s threatening feedback We are now exploring other ways of inducing unit relations in the lab to further understand the psychological process behind our results Source: