Grandiose (communal and agentic) narcissism and predicted (dis) obedience in the Milgram paradigm

Zdunek, Roksana R., Czarna, Anna Z. and Sedikides, Constantine (2022) Grandiose (communal and agentic) narcissism and predicted (dis) obedience in the Milgram paradigm. Personality and Individual Differences, 189, 1-45, [111514]. (doi:10.1016/j.paid.2022.111514).

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Abstract

People believe that they would disobey immoral authority in the Milgram experiment. We asked whether high (vs. low) communal and agentic narcissists would manifest a more pronounced better-than-average effect (BTAE) in their predicted disobedience. Participants (N = 348) estimated the moment at which they and the average peer would quit the Milgram experiment. High communal narcissists claimed that they would disobey the immoral authority and quit the experiment earlier (positively predicting the BTAE), whereas high agentic narcissists claimed that they, as well as an average other, would obey longer (negatively predicting the BTAE). Differences in the impression management component of socially desirable responding played a role in these links.

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Zdunek et al.,2022, PAID - Accepted Manuscript

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Accepted/In Press date: 7 January 2022

Published date: April 2022

Additional Information: Funding Information: The work was supported by grant 2018/30/E/HS6/00863 from the National Science Center , Poland, awarded to the second author. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Elsevier Ltd Copyright: Copyright 2022 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Keywords: Milgram experiment, agentic narcissism, better than average effect, communal narcissism, narcissism