OBJECTIVE:While previous research has mainly focused on the general relationship between narcissism and prosocial behavior, the nuanced associations between different forms of narcissism and prosociality remain underexplored. METHOD:To address this gap, we conducted a meta-analysis of 509 effect sizes from 124 studies and 152 samples (total N = 172,863) to explore the narcissism-prosociality link. RESULTS:Using a three-level random effects meta-analysis, we found no significant overall relation between narcissism and prosociality. However, different models revealed distinct patterns: one-factor/total narcissism was positively associated with overall, self-reported, and public prosociality. At the two-factor level, grandiose narcissism was related to greater overall, self-reported, and public prosociality, while vulnerable narcissism was not associated with any type of prosociality. At the three-factor level, agentic/extraversion was associated positively with overall and self-reported prosociality. Entitlement/antagonism was negatively associated with overall prosociality and prosocial behavior in game paradigms, whereas narcissistic neuroticism was not related to any type of prosociality. CONCLUSION:These findings suggest that the relationship between narcissism and prosociality depends on the dimensions of narcissism being considered.
OBJECTIVE:Self-Determination Theory posits that the internalization of motivations for behaviors is essential for cultivating a sense of meaning in life (MIL). Psychology of religion scholars also postulate that the internalization of religious motivations for behaviors is necessary to develop a coherent sense of MIL. Yet, we still lack robust longitudinal evidence for either of these propositions. METHODS:In a preregistered, longitudinal study, we investigated the temporal associations between three types of motivations (i.e., external, introjected, and identified) for religious practices and MIL judgments among N = 2056 emerging adults with four measurement occasions spaced 6 months apart using three random-intercept cross-lagged panel models. RESULTS:Between-persons, we found that external and introjected motivation were negatively associated, and identified motivation was positively associated with MIL judgments. Within-persons, we found unidirectional associations between the controlled forms of motivation and MIL judgments, whereby external and introjected motivation negatively predicted subsequent MIL judgments. We also found reciprocal within-person effects between identified motivation and MIL judgments. CONCLUSION:These findings highlight the need to take different motivations into account when studying the effects of religion on MIL, as the specific motivation can either promote or undermine emerging adults' sense of MIL over time.
OBJECTIVE:The nature of associations between disinhibition, anankastia, and conscientiousness as overlapping domains of control is not well understood. This study aimed to parse the shared and unique components of trait disinhibition and anankastia and examine their associations with trait conscientiousness and relevant outcomes. METHOD:We used confirmatory bifactor analysis across two preregistered samples of undergraduates and community adults (total N = 1068). RESULTS:Across both samples, disinhibition and anankastia were represented by specific latent factors, but a coherent general factor capturing shared variance across the two domains did not clearly emerge. The disinhibition-specific factor had small negative associations with the anankastia-specific factor and large negative associations with latent conscientiousness. In contrast, the anankastia-specific factor was moderately and positively related to latent conscientiousness. Disinhibition showed the most consistent and robust associations with poorer functioning and behavioral addiction outcomes, whereas associations for anankastia were fewer and more modest. CONCLUSIONS:These findings suggest that disinhibition and anankastia are largely distinct trait dimensions. Disinhibition and conscientiousness appear to reflect closely related but opposing traits, whereas anankastia and conscientiousness are positively related but separable. This study has implications for the broader structure of personality pathology and the polarity of maladaptive traits.
OBJECTIVE:Successful goal regulation requires balancing persistence with adjustment when goals become unattainable. Theoretical and empirical work has identified various antecedents of goal adjustment, yet how these factors function together as an interconnected system remains unclear. METHODS:We used Bayesian network analysis of longitudinal data to map conditional associations among personality traits, motivation, affect, goal processes, and goal adjustment capacities over 1 month (N = 492). RESULTS:The network revealed two clusters. The first centered on optimism, self-efficacy, and neuroticism, reflecting stable individual characteristics. The second captured dynamic goal processes, centered on progress, action crisis change, and disengagement. Controlled motivation bridged person-level traits and goal processes. Within the goal cluster, progress and disengagement occupied opposing positions with contrasting patterns of association with affect and action crisis change. Reengagement was connected to the wider network primarily through inter-goal conflict, controlled motivation, and importance change. CONCLUSIONS:Our findings map key associations between person- and goal-related variables, providing an empirical foundation for integrative models of goal adjustment.
OBJECTIVE:In popular discourse, personal success is often attributed to mindset. In psychological science, such claims correspond to self-related core beliefs-generalized self-representations. However, the lack of a comprehensive framework has prevented systematic investigation of their links to socioeconomic inequality. The present study aimed to provide the first systematic mapping of how socioeconomic status (SES) is reflected in individuals' core beliefs. METHOD:Building on the CorBel model-an integrative taxonomy of 97 belief nuances derived via natural language processing-we analyzed two preregistered, SES-representative national samples (Germany: N = 435, UK: N = 266). RESULTS:Positive beliefs (e.g., competence, autonomy, trust) were associated with higher SES, whereas negative beliefs (e.g., insecurity, unworthiness, pessimism) were associated with lower SES. These associations replicated across SES indicators (education, income, wealth) and across countries, explaining up to 20% of the variance in SES outcomes. CONCLUSIONS:The findings offer the first systematic mapping of how socioeconomic inequalities are mirrored in individuals' innermost psychological constitution. Core beliefs emerge as potential targets for interventions with both societal and policy relevance.
Objective. Systemic racism, reinforced by color-evasive ideology, shapes the ways that emerging adults process and discuss race/ethnicity. In this preregistered and mixed methods study, we used a master narrative framework to examine narratives about race/ethnicity among U.S. emerging adult friend-pairs. Method. Participants consisted of 107 friend-pairs (N = 214 total) who provided individually written racial/ethnic narratives and engaged in an unstructured conversation with each other in which race/ethnicity was brought up. Results. Using quantitative methods, we found that meaning making of racial/ethnic experiences was higher in written relative to spoken narrative contexts. Additionally, using qualitative methods, we identified specific conversation dynamics capturing how young people discussed race/ethnicity including subthemes of mitigation and encouragement, finding that encouragement dynamics were related to higher meaning making. Conclusion. Our discussion centers on the value of integrating qualitative and quantitative methods to explore how meaning of race/ethnicity is silenced or encouraged, and to reveal how master narratives perpetuating racial inequality may be disrupted.
OBJECTIVE:"Simps" are individuals (primarily men) who engage in costly or extravagant gestures toward a romantic interest without receiving reciprocation. As its first empirical validation, the current study newly operationalizes simping behaviors as well as the motivating factors predicting simping. METHOD:Act nomination and act frequency designs (Total N = 415) were used to identify the defining behaviors of simps. Correlational (N = 200) and experimental designs (N = 584) were then employed to examine effects of the fear of being single on simping. RESULTS:Across three studies, we found that simps were perceived as low in mate value, lacking self-identity, engaging in excessive and obsessive pursuit behaviors, as well as exhibiting exploitative tendencies. Furthermore, participants with greater fears of being single reported greater tendencies of simping behaviors, and when individuals were primed with the fear of being single, they reported greater tendencies to engage in simping behaviors. Predictors including mate value, social status, and social dominance did not predict simping behaviors. CONCLUSION:The fear of being single contributes significantly to the motivation behind male simping behaviors. We posit that the current precursory findings carry evolutionary (mal)adaptive implications concerning mate selection that are ripe for future avenues of research.
OBJECTIVE:Previous studies showed that cardiac vagal regulation is quadratically associated with prosociality. Preliminary evidence also indicated that agreeableness, which is considered to reflect the propensity of prosociality, was quadratically associated with cardiac vagal regulation. However, more evidence is needed to demonstrate the quadratic association between cardiac vagal regulation and agreeableness. The present study investigated this issue with relatively large samples of Chinese middle school and college students. METHOD:Agreeableness Subscale from the Big Five Inventory-2 was administered to middle school (N = 427, Mage = 13.18, SD = 0.58; 194 females) and college students (N = 401, Mage = 18.99, SD = 0.98, 266 females) to assess their agreeableness. The electrocardiogram data were collected to compute participants' resting respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) as an indicator of cardiac vagal regulation. RESULTS:Low and high resting RSA were associated with low agreeableness; moderate resting RSA was associated with high agreeableness in both samples of middle school and college students. CONCLUSIONS:These findings demonstrated a robust quadratic association between resting RSA and agreeableness across two Chinese samples, which deepens our understanding of the biological foundations of agreeableness and provides trait-level evidence for the quadratic resting RSA-prosociality relationship.
OBJECTIVE:The current longitudinal study tested whether different expressions of narcissism prospectively predict increased desires for status, perceptions of having attained status, and assertiveness-relative to desires for inclusion, perceptions of being included, and affiliativeness-and vice versa. METHOD:University students (N = 528) completed a three-wave longitudinal study, with waves spaced 2 weeks apart. Narcissism, desires for status and inclusion, perceptions of having attained status and inclusion, and assertiveness and affiliativeness were assessed at each wave. RESULTS:Grandiose, agentic, and antagonistic narcissism related to increasing desires for status and perceived status attainment, and vice versa, depending on how grandiose narcissism was assessed. In contrast, vulnerable narcissism related to diminishing desires for status and inclusion, and vice versa, depending on how vulnerable narcissism was assessed. CONCLUSION:Grandiose narcissism may encourage status aspirations and help people achieve higher status; higher status aspirations and perceived attainment, in turn, may encourage grandiose, agentic, and antagonistic narcissism. In contrast, vulnerable narcissism may shift motivations away from social validation, reducing desires for both status and inclusion in the medium term. These findings are generally consistent with and extend evidence for recent models of how grandiose narcissism relates to status.
Personality psychology seeks to understand not only individuals’ dispositional traits, but also components of personality like self-defining life narratives. Past studies correlating traits to narrative themes have largely focused on the Big Five. In the current study, two U.S. undergraduate samples (Study 1, N = 219; Study 2, N = 107) completed the Big Five Aspect Scales, which measure the Big Five domains and ten lower-order aspects (two per domain; e.g., Conscientiousness: Industriousness and Orderliness). Participants’ 2-page life stories (Study 1) and life high point, low point, and turning point narratives (Study 2) were coded for motivational, affective, structural, and autobiographical-reasoning themes. A mini meta-analysis across the two studies revealed several aspect-specific associations with motivational themes. For example, when controlling for shared variance between the aspects, Industriousness was positively associated with agency whereas Orderliness was negatively associated with agency. Trait associations with other narrative themes varied based on narrative methodology. In particular, the open-ended prompts and expanded coding schemes implemented in Study 1 may have allowed participants to better express their dispositional traits through narrative.
INTRODUCTION:Recent advances in psychiatric nosology replace categorical personality disorder diagnoses with dimensional frameworks characterized by level of personality functioning (LPF) and maladaptive traits. Increased emphasis on the assessment of self-functioning with LPF has led scholars to advocate for the inclusion of narrative identity into these models. The current study aimed to examine the utility of narrative identity for the assessment of LPF, and as an aid alongside LPF in predicting a relevant clinical outcome-functional impairment. METHODS:Life story narratives, alongside measures of LPF and functional impairment, were collected from 141 emerging adults (Mage = 20.70, SD = 2.08) drawn from a mixed college and clinical sample with borderline personality disorder. RESULTS:Maladaptive LPF was significantly associated with greater narrative deterioration and lower levels of agency, communion, and growth at the bivariate level. Regression analyzes revealed that narrative agency significantly predicted more adaptive self-reported LPF, whereas narrative deterioration predicted more maladaptive interview-rated LPF. Best subsets regression revealed that narrative deterioration, alongside self-reported and interview-rated LPF, explained the most variance in functional impairment with minimal model bias. CONCLUSION:Results highlight the utility of narrative identity for the assessment of LPF and as an aid to LPF in predicting functional impairment.
INTRODUCTION:Maladaptive personality traits are viewed as risk factors for personality pathology and are predictive of poor psychological and interpersonal functioning. The study of pathological personality traits has gained increasing popularity, but our knowledge on their association with emotion regulation (ER) processes is limited. METHODS:The present cross-sectional study investigated how pathological profiles relate to the regular and contextual selection and subjective effectiveness of a variety of ER strategies based on the Process Model and the Cognitive ER Questionnaire. Participants (N = 412, M age = 22.87) completed measures of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5, and habitual ER use and effectiveness, and ER use in hypothetical scenarios. RESULTS:Four profiles were obtained using Latent Profile Analysis, which differed in their ER patterns. The Resilient and Undercontrolled profiles consistently favored more adaptive strategies (such as Acceptance and Planning) and rated them as effective. The Anti-resilient group employed less adaptive strategies (such as Rumination), regularly and in different contexts, and tended to consider them more effective. The Overcontrolled profile showed a mixed pattern, relying on adaptive and maladaptive strategies, with a tendency to perceive adaptive strategies as less effective. CONCLUSION:Our findings document the regulation patterns of pathological profiles and offer a more nuanced understanding of their emotion regulation processes on a regular and situational basis.
INTRODUCTION:Meta-accuracy, the degree to which individuals accurately infer how others perceive them, is fundamental to social interactions. Yet the field draws on diverse methods across disciplines, and variation in conceptualizations and approaches has not been systematically captured. This review synthesizes the meta-accuracy literature across relational contexts, research foci, attribute domains, and measurement approaches. METHOD:Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, we searched five databases (January 2025; coverage through December 31, 2024) for peer-reviewed empirical studies assessing meta-accuracy. Two reviewers independently screened 1,336 records and extracted data using a preregistered protocol (OSF: https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/VMH6W). RESULTS:Ninety-three studies met inclusion criteria: dyadic meta-accuracy (DMA; k = 56; 60.2%), generalized meta-accuracy (GMA; k = 17; 18.3%), and combined approaches (k = 20; 21.5%). DMA and GMA differed in interaction settings and acquaintance levels; research foci diverged across disciplines; most studies targeted personality traits; and measurement approaches varied across studies. The majority of studies were cross-sectional (k = 88; 94.6%) and most samples were tertiary students (k = 60; 64.5%). CONCLUSION:This review systematically maps the conceptual, methodological, and contextual diversity in meta-accuracy research. We propose three priorities: (1) standardizing terminology to distinguish DMA from GMA, (2) transparent reporting of measurement approaches, and (3) developing unified frameworks that bridge disciplinary boundaries to support integrated future research.
Objective Narcissism is often proposed to drive attraction early in relationships but ultimately leads to poor long-term outcomes that are distressing to narcissistic individuals' partners. We examined changes in relationship satisfaction over a six-year period as a function of narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry.Method Data came from 5869 romantic dyads and a subsample of 533 early relationships within their first year. Participants were part of the German Family Panel (pairfam). Respondents completed the short form of the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire. For 6 years, both respondents and their partners completed a single-item relationship satisfaction measure.Results Both one's own and one's partner's narcissistic rivalry were associated with lower satisfaction in the full sample, but not the new relationships sample. Narcissistic admiration was not significantly associated with satisfaction. Contrary to predictions, neither partner's narcissism moderated relationship satisfaction changes in either sample.Conclusions Despite its association with lower baseline satisfaction, narcissistic rivalry failed to moderate longitudinal changes in relationship satisfaction. These findings challenge the assumption of a linear cost to narcissism over time and highlight the need to investigate alternative time scales or heterogeneous relationship outcomes.
OBJECTIVE:Empirical evidence suggests that perfectionism significantly influences emotion regulation; however, longitudinal data on this relation is still scarce. Hence, the current three-wave longitudinal study's purpose was to investigate the interplay between perfectionism and emotion regulation both at the group level, as well as at the within-person level, in an adolescent sample. METHOD:The total sample comprised 454 adolescents (69% girls) aged 10-18 years. Adolescents from five public schools completed a paper-pencil questionnaire over three consecutive school semesters. RESULTS:At the group-level, cross-lagged panel analyses showed a unidirectional longitudinal relation between perfectionistic strivings and reappraisal and bidirectional longitudinal relations between perfectionistic concerns and suppression. Conversely, at the within-person level, random-intercept cross-lagged panel analyses showed non-significant longitudinal relations. CONCLUSIONS:Insights into how perfectionism influences the development and maintenance of emotion regulation strategies in adolescence, as well as their bidirectional relation, are discussed.
INTRODUCTION:Narcissism has complex links with well-being. This study adopts the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Concept (NARC) to differentiate narcissistic admiration and rivalry, examining their associations with well-being across diverse cultural contexts. METHODS:We used data from 51,070 participants across 57 societies. Multilevel modeling was conducted to assess the associations between the two narcissism dimensions and well-being, and to test whether country-level individualism-collectivism moderates these relationships. Two cultural indices were used: the Minkov-Hofstede individualism score and the Global Collectivism Index. RESULTS:Narcissistic admiration was positively associated with well-being across all societies, indicating a culturally robust link. In contrast, narcissistic rivalry negatively predicted well-being, and this association was stronger in more individualistic and weaker in more collectivistic cultures. Moderation patterns were consistent across both cultural indices. CONCLUSION:These findings highlight the importance of distinguishing narcissistic subdimensions and incorporating cultural perspectives when examining narcissisms psychological outcomes.
OBJECTIVE:This research investigates the configurational antecedents of multifaceted Fear of Missing Out (FoMO) in Generation Z. The research explores the complex interdependencies of psychological factors and digital dependence (problematic social media use) factors giving rise to FoMO in Gen Z. METHOD:We used a survey research design combined with fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to examine the phenomenon among the Gen Z (n = 100) from a configurational rather than traditional linear perspective. RESULTS:Leveraging evidence from Gen Z social media users, the analysis demonstrates six different causal paths to high FoMO. They involve social comparison and validation need-driven configurations, emotionally dependent configurations including loneliness and anxiety, and vulnerabilities-rooted configurations. The results underline the complex, multifaceted nature of FoMO and reinforce the necessity for taking into consideration multiple interacting influences over isolated predictors. CONCLUSION:The study provides useful guidelines for practitioners and managers on mitigating challenges posed by FoMO among Gen Z. This research provides novelty by synthesizing psychological factors and digital dependence within a configurational theory of FoMO among Gen Z and offers a differential view of FoMO, adding new insights on the interaction between psychological factors and digital dependence specifically among the Gen Z cohort.
INTRODUCTION:Self-presentation behaviors are associated with self-esteem. However, it remains unclear how verbal behaviors during self-presentation are associated with self-esteem. This uncertainty stems from the lack of fine-grained linguistic analysis. In addition, existing findings on the relationship between verbal behaviors and self-esteem are inconsistent, possibly due to variations in the content of self-presentation. The present research aims to address these limitations. METHOD:In Study 1, 211 participants (178 female) completed two self-presentation tasks based on the social-cognitive dimensions of agency and communion. Twelve linguistic features across lexical, syntactic, and semantic levels were extracted using computational linguistic techniques and analyzed via ridge regression. Study 2 recruited an independent sample of 63 participants (50 female) to replicate Study 1's findings using machine learning methods. RESULTS:Study 1 showed that linguistic features (e.g., adverbials, positive and negative emotion sentences) were consistently associated with self-esteem across both tasks. Specifically, linguistic features in agency-based self-presentation predicted self-esteem more effectively (R2 = 0.106) than those in the communion-based task (R2 = 0.042). Study 2 suggested stronger generalizability in the agency task. CONCLUSIONS:Verbal behaviors are associated with self-esteem and are moderated by the content of self-presentation. Agency (relative to communion) may function as a more expressive channel for self-esteem.
INTRODUCTION:Proactive coping is an important construct in health and well-being research. Yet, not much is known about its temporal stability and how life events affect it. Conceptualizations of coping have mainly focused on either (i) stable, trait-like characteristics, (ii) state-like, context-dependent features, or (iii) process-oriented aspects of coping. This preregistered study integrates these approaches to investigate the variability and stability of five dimensions of proactive coping. It further examines whether proactive coping is sensitive to an exemplary life event: unemployment. METHODS:The study uses monthly panel data of two cohorts of initially employed German job seekers (N1 = 1540; N2 = 909). It utilizes a latent-state-trait model with autoregressive effects. RESULTS:Proactive coping was highly stable over time. This stability was largely driven by dispositional (trait) differences. Situation-specific factors had a very small effect. Similarly, the effects of previous situations were overall small; however, they were larger on the early and late occasions of measurement. Furthermore, no effects of unemployment were found. The results were largely similar in the two cohorts. CONCLUSION:Proactive coping is highly stable over time and across episodes of employment and unemployment. However, it also contains a dynamic component, which suggests it can be affected by situational influences.
INTRODUCTION:Most people want two or more children, but many do not realize their fertility desires. At the same time, recent studies suggest that up to 15% of parents regret having children. To investigate how fertility mismatch relates to well-being (i.e., affect balance, life satisfaction, family life satisfaction, and work satisfaction), this preregistered study used nationally representative cross-sectional data of private households in Germany (N = 23,843 age range 18-100 years). METHOD:We applied multilevel modeling to investigate if individual characteristics and regional factors moderated the link between well-being and fertility (mis)match. RESULTS:Involuntary childless people, people who were childfree by choice, parents who fell short of their fertility desires, and parents who met their fertility desires reported similar well-being. Only exceeding one's fertility desires was robustly linked to lower well-being, whereas falling short was only linked to lower well-being in adults past the fertile age. We found no evidence for moderation effects of regional-level religiosity, social norms, and childcare infrastructure. CONCLUSION:Researchers should consider both fertility outcomes and desires when studying well-being in the context of parenthood. Longitudinal research is needed to explore mechanisms such as goal striving, basic needs fulfillment, or social roles discrepancies that link fertility (mis)match to well-being.
