Just Because I'm Great (and You're Not): When, Why, and How Narcissistic Individuals Give Gifts to Others

We examined the roles of Narcissistic Admiration and Narcissistic Rivalry in gift giving. We hypothesized that Admirative and Rivalrous individuals diverge in their likelihood of giving gifts.

Across six studies (∑N = 2198), we used correlational and experimental methodology and capitalized on both scenarios and actual gift giving.

Narcissistic Admiration was positively, but Narcissistic Rivalry was negatively, associated with gift-giving likelihood (Studies 1-2). These findings were explained by diverging communal motivations for gift giving (Study 3). Consistent with the notion that Rivalrous individuals are less likely to give gifts for communal reasons because they feel threatened by social closeness, the negative association between Narcissistic Rivalry and gift-giving likelihood was attenuated when the gift recipient was more socially distant (vs. close; Study 4). Further, gifts that are recipient-centric (e.g., customized with a recipient's name) are less focused on attributes of the giver and less likely to foster social closeness. Therefore, consistent with Admirative individuals' use of gift giving to promote themselves as a superior communal relationship partner, the positive association between Narcissistic Admiration and gift-giving likelihood was attenuated for gifts that were recipient-centric (Study 5). Socially desirable responding, self-esteem, and fear of failure (Study SM1) did not account for the findings.