Narcissists as “Victims”: The Role of Narcissism in the Perception of Transgressions

Abstract

Narcissism is a set of traits that are motivated by the desire to establish and maintain a grandiose self-image. Consistent with this conceptualization, the authors hypothesized that narcissistic people perceive themselves to be the victims of other people's inter-personal transgressions more frequently than do less narcissistic people. In a 14-day diary study, the authors found that narcissism (particularly in its exploitiveness/entitlement dimension) was associated positively with the number and frequency of transgressions that respondents reported. The narcissism-victimization relationship appears to result, at least in part, from biased recall or self-presentation. The exploitiveness/entitlement dimension of narcissism may be particularly useful for explaining why narcissistic people report higher rates of interpersonal transgressions in their daily lives.