How narcissism relates to upward-status disagreement in virtual project design teams

ABSTRACT

Despite people’s adeptness at discerning group members’ status, disagreements over who ranks higher (i.e., upward-status disagreement; USD) are frequent. In this study, we evaluated how different dimensions of narcissism, which are intertwined with the pursuit of status, relate to status attainment, perception, and ultimately USDs. Following virtual task-oriented teams across three time points, we found that narcissistic admiration did not relate to status attainment or perception, yet was linked to early and consistent involvement in USDs. In contrast, narcissistic rivalry predicted other-status devaluation across all time points and a decrease in absolute status over time. The findings reveal how distinct dimensions of narcissism differentially contribute to status dynamics in teams across different stages of social interaction.

KEYWORDS:

• Narcissism
• status
• status disagreement
• Small groups, Social rank

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at: https://osf.io/9jnbv/?view_only=10f0b3b8373d488eb5f76f0abccf4f13.

Notes

1. Within this article, the term narcissism and narcissists refer to grandiose narcissism and individuals who score relatively high on measures of grandiose narcissism.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [1].