Journal Article

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

Cohen, Geoffrey L., Thomaes, Sander, Bushman, Brad J., de Castro, Brain Orobio, Denissen, Jaap J. A.

2009

Overview

Narcissistic individuals are prone to become aggressive when their egos are threatened. We report a randomized field experiment that tested whether a socialpsychological 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 9 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.

• Publisher: Wiley Periodicals,SAGE Publications,SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subject: Adolescent / Adolescents / Affirmation / Aggression - psychology / Aggressiveness / Assignment / At risk populations / At risk youth / Child psychology / Childhood / Ego / Experimental psychology / Female / Field study / Fieldwork / Human aggression / Humans / Intervention / Male / Modeling / Narcissism / Peer Group / Personal aggression / Personality disorders / Prone / Psychological intervention / Psychological Tests / Self / Self Concept / Self esteem / Selfaffirmation / Social psychology / Teenagers / Writing