Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
PLoS One. 2020 Dec 3;15(12):e0243588. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0243588. eCollection 2020.
Humans seek admiration to boost their social rank and engage in rivalry to protect it when fearing defeat. Traits such as narcissism and affective states such as depression are thought to influence perception of rank and motivation for dominance in opposite ways, but evidence of the underlying behavioral mechanisms is scant. We investigated the effects of dimensionally-assessed narcissism and depression on behavioral responses to social defeat in a rigged video game tournament designed to elicit rivalry (stealing points from opponents) and admiration-seeking (paying for rank). We tested an undergraduate sample (N = 70, mean age = 21.5 years) and a clinical sample of predominantly depressed elderly (N = 85, mean age = 62.6 years). Both rivalry and admiration-seeking increased with time on task and were particularly enhanced in individuals high in narcissism. Participants engaged in more rivalry when pitted against high-ranked opponents, but depression partially mitigated this tendency. Our findings provide behavioral evidence that narcissism manifests in increased rivalry and admiration-seeking during social contests. Depression does not suppress general competitiveness but selectively inhibits upward-focused rivalry.
人类寻求赞赏以提升社会地位，并在担心失败时进行竞争以保护地位。自恋等特质和抑郁等情感状态被认为以相反的方式影响对地位的感知和主导动机，但缺乏潜在行为机制的证据。我们在一个设计用于引发竞争（从对手那里窃取分数）和寻求赞赏（花钱买排名）的视频游戏锦标赛中，研究了维度评估的自恋和抑郁对社会失败行为反应的影响。我们测试了一个本科生样本（N=70，平均年龄为 21.5 岁）和一个主要是抑郁的老年临床样本（N=85，平均年龄为 62.6 岁）。竞争和寻求赞赏都随着任务时间的增加而增加，并且在自恋程度较高的个体中尤为明显。参与者在与高排名对手竞争时会更多地进行竞争，但抑郁部分减轻了这种趋势。我们的研究结果提供了行为证据，表明自恋在社会竞争中表现为更多的竞争和寻求赞赏。抑郁不会抑制一般的竞争意识，但会选择性地抑制向上的竞争。
