Moral Decision-making Of Narcissists In A Dilemma

Narcissism is regarded as a mixed-blessing trait.On the one hand,narcissists are charming,adventurous and keen on admiration from others and social status;On the other hand,they are vulnerable,alert to threats in the environment,and devaluate other people by attacking them.The core purpose of narcissistic behavior is to serve for their inflated and fragile self-concept,and psychologists presented many personality models,such as Narcissistic Traits Model and the Dynamic Self-regulatory Processing Model,to integrate elusive character and behavior of narcissists.The Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Concept(NARC)considered that narcissism includes two dimensions-admiration and rivalry-the former means seeking admiration and adjusting interpersonal strategies actively;and the latter reflects the dark personality of the narcissist,vulnerable and sensitive,and actively demeans the negative qualities of revenge.The two dimensions are highly related and contain specific levels;Many studies confirmed that NARC can explain the characteristics of narcissists in society and romantic relationship effectively.Previous studies had found that narcissism measured by NPI and Dark Dozen was related to moral decision-making.Narcissists prefered utilitarian moral decision-making which participants saved more lives at the sacrifice of fewer people.However,previous studies focused on the tendency and didn't concern about the mediating mechanism,and we also have no progress about the relationship between the bright side of narcissism and moral decison-making.There is one more thing,moral appraisal of narcissists in dilemmas was unknowen.On account of the three questions,the present studies focus on NARC and moral decision-making.We verified the adaptability of NARC in Chinese culture and the reliability/validity of The Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire(NARQ).The relationship between narcissism and moral decision-making was explored in the perspective of virtue ethic.There are four studies in our research:Studyl verified the adaptability of NARC in Chinese participants and the reliability/validity of NARQ.The next study presented the relationship between NARC and other personalities(such as empathy,sensitivity to punishment and reward),and the mediating mechanism of narcissism and moral decision-making.We also concerned about the performance of narcissists in the perspective of virtue ethic.Narcissism is a variable of emotion and motivation in practice,which has a strong desire to be superior to others.The overly positive self-concept of narcissists requires constant reinforcement and affirmation.Narcissists are keen on social comparison and have obvious needs for self-improvement.It is also believed that the role of personality traits can only be better interpreted with the help of specific situational factors.NARC,as a kind of dynamic model emphasizes the narcissist adjust their strategy according to the characteristics of the situation,given the narcissist fanatical pursuit of self-improvement and positive evaluation,and whether social evaluation on the narcissistic personality and moral decision-making relationship is worth further discussing.Study3 explored the moral decision-making of narcissists in public/non-public situation,and the final study was interested in the interaction between narcissism and situation by three social appraisal(positive,negative and mixed).The results showed that:1)NARC was adapted to Chinese participants.The admiration/competition narcissistic personality scale has a good reliability,and there are two dimensions,which are clearly admired and competitive,which can be used for the measurement of narcissistic personality in China.2)The admiration/competition narcissism is not related to the tendency and time of moral decision-making in the dilemma,and the results are contrary to previous studies.However,with the effect of social evaluation situation,we found that there were interactions between competition narcissism and social appraisal:high competition narcissists prefered deontological moral decision-making in negative appraisal;There were differences between high/low competition narcissists in public.and non-public.3)Narcissists pay more attention to themselves in moral decision-making,and narcissists are not "virtuous people" in the perspective of virtue ethic.Regardless of the decision,high admiration narcissists was more likely to be praised,while high competition narcissists showed less guilt.