Modeling the interplay between narcissism, relational motives, and jealousy-induced responses to infidelity threat

Threat-based accounts of narcissism postulate enhanced worrying and negative emotion following threat. The present study examined whether the psychological process by which people experience and respond to jealousy-inducing threats varies according to their narcissism subtype. Participants completed measures of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, simulated sexual and emotional infidelity scenarios, and reported their anticipated (a) motives (power/control, relational security, self-esteem compensation, uncertainty minimization) and (b) jealousy responses (worrying, negative emotions, and behavioral tactics). Path modeling conditionally supported threat-based accounts for the vulnerable subtype but not for the grandiose subtype. Grandiose narcissism (marginally) inversely related to a composite of worrying and negative emotion but (directly) positively related to power/control motives and, in turn, attacking/restricting tactics. Effects of vulnerable narcissism on jealousy outcomes depended on infidelity type. Vis-à-vis emotional infidelity, vulnerable narcissism positively related to worrying and negative emotion and, in turn, related to heightened pursuit of all motives, some of which uniquely predicted heightened attacking/restricting tactics, suppressed attacking/restricting tactics, and heightened enhancing tactics. Vis-à-vis sexual infidelity, effects of vulnerable narcissism mimicked those of grandiose narcissism. In jealousy contexts, extant threat-based accounts of narcissism appear inadequate for explaining the grandiose subtype and evidently bounded for explaining the vulnerable subtype.