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Interpersonal Transgressions and Interest in Spiritual Activities: The Role of Narcissism

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Abstract

As levels of narcissism rise among Americans, it is important to understand how being narcissistic affects individuals’ day-to-day lives. One domain in which narcissism may have particularly interesting effects is individuals’ spirituality. When interpersonal expectations have been violated, individuals experience a variety of emotions. Chief among these emotions is guilt, which is linked both thematically and empirically to many aspects of Western religion. Given narcissism’s complex relationship with guilt, it is important to investigate how narcissists may react to failings in the interpersonal domain, particularly in a spiritual context. The current study investigated the effects of a simulated interpersonal failing on narcissists’ interest in a variety of spiritual behaviors, including prayer, seeking spiritual guidance, and participating in spiritual activities aimed at self-enhancement. After reading a scenario designed to induce feelings associated with interpersonal failings, participants reported their interest in a variety of religious activities, including prayer. Results indicated that the manipulation tended to decrease interest in a variety of spiritual activities across the sample, but that these effects were only robust among participants high in narcissism.

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Notes

  1. The current study focuses on trait narcissism, a personality dimension that varies among normally functioning individuals. It does not address narcissistic personality disorder, a clinical diagnosis indicating pervasive problems in psychological functioning that occurs relatively rarely (American Psychiatric Association 2013). The current project also focuses on grandiose, rather than vulnerable, narcissism (cf. Miller et al. 2011). Grandiose narcissism is the more ‘traditional’ form related to grandiosity, entitlement, and dominance. Vulnerable narcissism is related to insecurity (i.e., feelings of inadequacy and fears of incompetence), which underlies self-absorption. For stylistic simplicity here, the terms “narcissists” and “narcissism” refer to non-clinical grandiose narcissism.

  2. Because our primary dependent measure was interest in praying, we excluded participants who identified as atheist and those that indicated that they never prayed. Participants indicated their religious identification and frequency of praying after completing individual difference measures. Approximately 40 % (n = 149) of participants who completed the initial measures were excluded based on these criteria, consistent with research indicating that MTurk samples are less religious than the general population (Berinsky et al. 2012). Excluded and included participants reported similar scores on the NPI [t(346) = −.05, p = .96] and the HSNS [t(346) = .32, p = .75].

  3. Although Maniaci and Rogge (2014) recommend dropping participants who complete surveys in less than half the average completion time, this approach would have excluded 22 participants, 9.5 % of the sample, which is outside the range of their 3–9 % estimate of inattentive responders in a typical dataset. We opted for a more conservative approach that retained more data but also reduced error variance. We also found that the predicted means of our dependent variables yielded highly similar patterns when including the fastest 5 %.

  4. Although they are not likely to be particularly prayerful, participants who identified as agnostics and reported praying “infrequently’ were retained for analyses to be as conservative as possible in excluding participants and because reporting interest in prayer on our dependent measures was within the realm of possibility for them. Excluding them from analyses did not change the pattern of findings.

  5. Participants in each condition reported similar NPI scores, t(206)= -1.26, p = .21.

  6. All of these items are presented in the Appendix.

  7. We also performed analyses examining whether gender moderated the effects of experimental condition or the interaction between experimental condition and NPI scores and found no evidence of these effects on the manipulation check or any of the dependent variables. There was, however, a statistically significant interaction between NPI and gender on self-enhancing spiritual practices (b = .03, se = .02, p = .04) such that the correlation between NPI and interest in such practices was stronger for women than men. Given the lack of gender effects, it will not be discussed further.

  8. Parallel analyses using the HSNS on the emotion items yielded no interactions between narcissism and condition (p’s = .45 to .99).

  9. Analyses of all other dependent measures also yielded no interactions between condition and HSNS (all p’s > .24).

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Jean Clore and Kelsey Phillis for their comments on earlier drafts.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, E11 Seashore Hall, Iowa City, IA, 52242-1407, USA

    Austin J. Simpson

  2. Department of Psychology, Bradley University, Peoria, IL, USA

    Anthony D. Hermann & Mark J. Lehtman

  3. Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Bradley University, Peoria, IL, USA

    Robert C. Fuller

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  1. Austin J. Simpson
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  2. Anthony D. Hermann
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  3. Mark J. Lehtman
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  4. Robert C. Fuller
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Correspondence to Austin J. Simpson.

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Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Conflict of Interest

AJS, ADH, ML, and RCF declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Appendix

Appendix

Current Interest in Spiritual Activities

“Right now, I feel like…”

  1. 1.

    Praying to thank God for things occurring in my life. (prayer)

  2. 2.

    Opening myself up to God for insight into my problems through prayer. (prayer)

  3. 3.

    Asking God for assistance with my daily problems. (prayer)

  4. 4.

    Praising God through prayer. (prayer)

  5. 5.

    Praying to confess things I have done wrong. (prayer)

  6. 6.

    Listening to a sermon at a house of worship. (spiritual guidance)

  7. 7.

    Seeking advice from a religious leader. (spiritual guidance)

  8. 8.

    Reading spiritual or religious books or magazine articles. (spiritual guidance)

  9. 9.

    Exploring practices that might open my inner energies, such as meditation. (self-enhancing spiritual practices)

  10. 10.

    Attending a workshop for releasing my inner potentials. (self-enhancing spiritual practices)

  11. 11.

    Going to my place of worship to see friends. (socializing)

  12. 12.

    Going to a place of worship to meet people. (socializing)

  13. 13.

    Sharing my personal view and life experiences in a Bible/spiritual study group. (spiritual leadership)

  14. 14.

    Leading a Bible study/spiritual discussion group. (spiritual leadership)

  15. 15.

    Offering spiritual guidance to someone struggling. (spiritual leadership)

  16. 16.

    Evangelizing or witnessing to non-believers. (spiritual leadership)

Note: All items were rated on a 1 (not at all interested) to 7 (extremely interested) Likert scale.

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Simpson, A.J., Hermann, A.D., Lehtman, M.J. et al. Interpersonal Transgressions and Interest in Spiritual Activities: The Role of Narcissism. Curr Psychol 35, 195–206 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-015-9393-z

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