Aggression in Social Anxiety: Narcissistic Self-Centeredness as a Differentiator in Person-Centered and...

Although social anxiety (SA) is typically conceptualized as an internalizing vulnerability, a subset of socially anxious individuals display heightened aggression. The present study examined whether vulnerable narcissism-particularly narcissistic self-centeredness-helps explain heterogeneity in the SA-aggression association. Chinese university students (N = 872) completed measures of SA (Social Interaction Anxiety Scale; Social Phobia Scale), vulnerable narcissism (Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale; self-centeredness and rejection sensitivity), and proactive/reactive aggression (Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire). Latent profile analysis using the two SA indicators and the two vulnerable-narcissism facets identified seven profiles. A high-SA/high-vulnerable-narcissism profile ("Vulnerable-Defensive"; 9.9% of the sample) reported aggression levels in the highest tier across all three aggression indices, together with a Moderate-SA/Moderate-VN profile (Class 5; 23.9%) and a High-SA/Low-VN profile (Class 6; 6.3%). Planned contrasts showed that, despite both profiles occupying the highest SA tier, the Vulnerable-Defensive profile-which additionally scored substantially higher on self-centeredness-reported higher reactive aggression (d = 0.32) and total aggression (d = 0.34) than a high-SA/low-vulnerable-narcissism profile. Complementary moderated regressions indicated that self-centeredness modestly strengthened the association between SA and proactive aggression (interaction B = 0.095, p = 0.032; f²= 0.005) but not reactive aggression. These results suggest that SA is not uniformly associated with aggression; narcissistic self-centeredness helps differentiate high-SA individuals who are at heightened risk for aggressive responding.