Psychological Development and Education ›› 2016, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (2): 236-245.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2016.02.13

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The Mediational Roles of Perceived threat, Anger, and Hostile Attribution Bias between State Narcissism and Aggression

YANG Chenchen1,2, LI Caina2, WANG Zhenhong2, BIAN Yufang1   

  1. 1. Cooperative Innovation Center of Assessment toward Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875;
    2. Department of Psychology, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710062
  • Online:2016-03-15 Published:2016-03-15

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Abstract: In most prior research, narcissism has been consistently found to promote aggression under provocation. However, most of them have focused only on dispositional narcissism without considering situational factors that may increase narcissism temporarily. The present studies explored the possibility that experimentally induced increases in narcissism would foster aggressive responding to criticism by increasing perceived threat in a laboratory setting among Chinese college students. 162 college students were randomly assigned to conditions of a 2(narcissism activating story vs. neutral control story) by 2(threat vs. praise) between-subjects design. Structural equation model and bootstrapping analyses were utilized to test the hypothesized mediating model, results showed that (1) there is significant difference in the level of state narcissism induced by different priming stories among participants; (2) the state narcissism activating group expresses more aggression under the condition of threat (vs. praise); (3) the effect of state narcissism on aggression is mediated by perceived threat, anger and hostile attribution biases; (4) on the whole, perceived threat not only directly predict aggression, but also lead to aggression via feelings of anger and hostile attribution biases. For narcissism activating group, state narcissism make an indirect effect on aggression through feelings of anger and hostile attribution bias; for neutral control group, the relationship doesn't exist. The results suggest that factors of emotions and cognitive would produce aggressive behaviors when the narcissists confronted with negative evaluations.

Key words: state narcissism, perceived threat, anger, hostile attribution bias, aggression

CLC Number: 

  • B844
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