The old saying “There’s nothing like bad publicity” seems to apply perfectly to narcissistic men. A series of studies have found themselves surprisingly open to talking about garbage.
As psypost A new study conducted by psychologists at Duke, the University of Mississippi and the German university, Kaisarsullandau, found that men are generally more open about their liking than women.
Published in the journal Self and identitythe study included a series of phases that lengthily explained how 400 university students participants adopted through the online platform felt about the four types of gossip that were negative, positive, neutral/ambiguous, or not mentioned at all.
For example, this paper provided a party scenario where attendees would begin to talk about them in a state of assertion, assertive or vague, except in situations where they were “not mentioned.”
During the survey, participants were asked to agree to the statement “I am a narcissist” and either agree that one was the lowest and seven were the highest or rated on a scale of one to seven. While asking such a question entirely seems somewhat counterintuitive, research suggests that narcissists know their narcissism.
Participants’ responses were then analyzed more comprehensively using the classic narcissistic personality inventory questionnaire to better assess how they were in fact narcissistic.
After analyzing participants’ responses, the researchers said that while most people do not want rumors, 64% of the cohort prefer to actively prefer rumors rather than not spoken overall. The narcissists, meanwhile, were more willingly debated in each gossip state. And they seemed to be slightly more fond of what was being discussed in a positive light, negative, vague or none.
As the researchers wrote in their paper, “In narcissism, men and individuals seem to be keen on attention, even if it is negative.”
“Based on these findings, it follows that you are thinking about a world where others have nothing to say about you – good or bad – as well,” the paper concluded. “It is reasonable to expect gossip to have the potential to affirm your social significance, if nothing else.
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