The “Why” and “How” of Narcissism: A Process Model of Narcissistic Status Pursuit

Situation selection

Situation selection refers to approaching or avoiding social environments that help or hinder goal pursuit (Gross, 1998). Such environments are selected on the basis of prior experiences in these or similar environments.

We argue that narcissists prefer, and thus tend to select, public and hierarchical social environments because these environments have a higher likelihood of affording status. Three strands of empirical evidence back up this claim.

First, narcissists tend to select public over private social settings because in such settings they can place themselves in the limelight of social activity and earn the status they pursue. For example, narcissists often select environments rich in social interactions, wherein opportunities for elevating their social image are abundant (Bradlee & Emmons, 1992; Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). Perhaps for this reason, narcissists on average prefer (Jonason, Wee, Li, & Jackson, 2014; Kowalski, Vernon, & Schermer, 2017) and often pursue careers that enable them to be at the center of attention and rise through societal ranks. Consistent with these findings, narcissism levels are indeed elevated among actors (Dufner et al., 2015) and celebrities (Young & Pinsky, 2006).

Second, narcissists have been shown to choose hierarchical over egalitarian settings, provided they can gain status in these settings (Alba, McIlwain, Wheeler, & Jones, 2014; Zitek & Jordan, 2016). As hierarchical settings promote competition and reward superior competences, they are the natural habitats in which status can be obtained. Consistent with this idea, narcissism levels are elevated in wealthy individuals (Leckelt et al., 2019) and chief executive officers (CEOs; Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006).

A third strand of evidence concerns narcissists’ relationship choices. Because humans are a social species, relationship choices are an important feature of situation selection. Narcissists are more likely to choose relationships that elevate their status over relationships that cultivate affiliation. For example, narcissists are keener on gaining new partners than on establishing close relationships with existing ones (Wurst et al., 2017). They often demonstrate an increased preference for high-status friends (Jonason & Schmitt, 2012) and trophy partners (Campbell, 1999), perhaps because they can bask in the reflected glory of these people.

In sum, narcissists are more likely to select social environments that allow them to display their performances publicly, ideally in competition with others. These settings are potentially more accepting and reinforcing of narcissistic status strivings.

Vigilance

Vigilance refers to a chronic state of biased attention toward specific classes of environmental cues, which are often related to goal pursuit. Individuals are assumed to be especially vigilant toward environmental cues that convey information about how much environments facilitate or hinder their goal pursuit (Crick & Dodge, 1994). Vigilance can aid goal pursuit because it enables heightened processing of and responsiveness to goal-relevant cues (Schultheiss, 2001). Because vigilance requires prior knowledge of the extent to which cues can be relevant to goal pursuit, it also encompasses the automatic encoding of cues’ relevance or irrelevance to goal pursuit (Pratto & John, 1991).

Individuals who pursue status tend to be more vigilant toward observable cues of their own and others’ status (Anderson et al., 2015). We assume that the same applies to narcissists, who tend to closely monitor the social image they convey and wish to be perceived as admirable figures (Kowalski, Rogoza, Vernon, & Schermer, 2018; Zeigler-Hill, Vrabel, et al., 2018). To monitor how their pursuit of status is faring in their social environments, narcissists may vigilantly attend to cues that reflect how much status they earn through their behaviors. They might, for example, vigilantly observe the amount of attention (e.g., holding others’ visual attention) and admiration (e.g., receiving praise or eliciting expressions of awe) they earn, as well as the direct influence (e.g., others following their guidance) they exert compared with their competitors in the social hierarchy. After all, these cues can reveal the extent to which individuals gain, maintain, or lose the status they pursue (Anderson & Kilduff, 2009b; Cheng et al., 2013).

We also suggest that narcissists vigilantly attend to other people’s efforts at status pursuit because these efforts can hinder narcissists’ own status goals. For example, we expect that narcissists are more likely to deploy their attention to luxurious items others might possess, to external features such as physical attractiveness, or to others’ expressions of pride and social aloofness. These observable cues are more likely to capture narcissists’ attention because they are indicative of social status (Mattan et al., 2017). Likewise, narcissists may be more vigilantly observant of others’ self-promoting or other-derogating behaviors, as these behaviors often reflect attempts to increase in status (Anderson et al., 2015; Cheng et al., 2013) and can thus signal a hindrance to narcissists’ own status pursuit.

For the same reasons, narcissists may also be particularly sensitive to cues that convey hindrances to their own status pursuit. Such cues can range from those directly indicating a loss of status (i.e., being derogated by others) to subtler behavioral or lexical cues that reveal possible threats to status. Attesting to this, when primed with failure, narcissists tend to be faster than nonnarcissists in recognizing words associated with worthlessness—a finding suggestive of higher vigilance in encoding cues related to the loss of status (Horvath & Morf, 2009).

In sum, narcissists are more likely to pay vigilant attention to external cues of their own and others’ social status. These cues can signal that a situation affords status and indicate the extent to which one’s social environment facilitates or hinders status pursuit.

Appraisal

Goal-relevant cues can set in motion individuals’ appraisal of the situation. We define appraisal as the assessment of situational affordances toward goal-fulfilling behaviors. Appraisals therefore direct the selection of goal-fulfilling behaviors (Crick & Dodge, 1994; Lazarus, 1993) in response to cues indicating that a situation is relevant to goal fulfillment.

Evidence suggests that there are two fundamental pathways by which individuals can gain status. The first pathway concerns elevating one’s status by constructing a positive reputation of oneself. This is usually achieved through convincing audiences of one’s superior competence and worth (self-promotion, or prestige; Anderson & Kilduff, 2009a; Back et al., 2013; Cheng & Tracy, 2014). The second pathway concerns decreasing competitors’ status by constructing a negative reputation of competitors. This is usually achieved through convincing audiences of competitors’ inferior competence and worth (other-derogation, or dominance; Back et al., 2013; Cheng & Tracy, 2014). Narcissism is associated with the use of both behavioral strategies for status attainment (Zeigler-Hill, Vrabel, et al., 2018). We posit that, once narcissists find themselves in a situation that affords status (i.e., when their attention grasps status-relevant cues), they assess whether self-promotion or other-derogation is most likely to succeed in securing status. Situational cues indicating facilitation of status pursuit can trigger appraisals about the heightened utility of self-promotion, whereas situational cues indicating hindrance of status pursuit can trigger appraisals about the heightened utility of other-derogation.

We argue that, by default, narcissists tend to appraise situations as facilitating status pursuit and hence appraise them as affording self-promotion (Back, 2018; Wetzel, Leckelt, Gerlach, & Back, 2016). We attribute this tendency to narcissists’ unrealistically positive, inflated self-views in status-relevant domains. For example, narcissists often believe that they are incredibly attractive (Gabriel, Critelli, & Ee, 1994), even when others might think that they are not. Furthermore, narcissists often believe that they possess superior intellect, even when their actual IQ scores are not on par (Campbell et al., 2002; Dufner, Denissen, et al., 2013). Likewise, narcissists may think that they are exceptionally good at understanding others’ intentions and emotions despite often being less capable of doing so (Ames & Kammrath, 2004; Mota et al., 2019). In addition, narcissists may think that they are highly creative, even when objective assessments might dispute it (Goncalo, Flynn, & Kim, 2010). Finally, narcissists often see themselves as charismatic leaders, even when they might disrupt group performance (Judge, LePine, & Rich, 2006; Nevicka, Ten Velden, De Hoogh, & Van Vianen, 2011). As a result of these broad, inflated self-perceptions, narcissists may be more inclined to appraise situations as affording self-promotion rather than other-derogation.

If narcissists are so strongly inclined to appraise that environments afford self-promotion, when might they attempt to derogate others? We argue that narcissists will be inclined to derogate others when they appraise that situational status demands exceed their resources for self-promotion. For example, when confronted by a formidable status competitor, narcissists might be more inclined to exert effort into defaming the competitor because doing so can potentially damage that person’s reputation and thus decrease that person’s status. The gravitation toward other-derogation is especially salient in situations in which cues signal a strong hindrance of narcissists’ own status pursuit. A large body of research suggests that when narcissists are criticized, humiliated, or outperformed by others, they seek to derogate them (Bushman & Baumeister, 1998; Horton & Sedikides, 2009; Kernis & Sun, 1994; Stucke & Sporer, 2002; Thomaes, Bushman, Stegge, & Olthof, 2008). In such instances, a strategy for reclaiming at least some status can therefore be to derogate or be aggressive toward the evaluator, with the purpose of punishing him or her or defaming him or her in the eyes of others.

It should be underscored that other-derogation is often viewed as less socially desirable because it is a strategy that establishes status through conflict (Cheng & Tracy, 2014). Narcissists, however, might be more inclined than nonnarcissists to view it as an acceptable avenue toward status attainment (Carlson & Lawless DesJardins, 2015) for a number of reasons. First, because narcissists tend to value status over affiliation, they might be less averse to the possibility of becoming disliked as long as other-derogation can grant them the status they pursue.

Second, because of their heightened sense of entitlement (i.e., their sense of inherent deservedness), narcissists might form exaggerated expectations of status acquisition (Grubbs & Exline, 2016). These expectations might eventually lead narcissists to underestimate the effort required to prove that they deserve to gain status. Research suggests that this might be the case, as entitled self-views are associated with an overestimation of the competence—and underestimation of the combativeness—that individuals display when pursuing status (Lange, Redford, & Crusius, 2018; Scopelliti, Loewenstein, & Vosgerau, 2015). As a result of their heightened sense of entitlement, narcissists might be inclined to view the hindrances to self-promotion as unjust, which could lead them to retaliate when they are not granted their desired status.

Third, narcissists’ beliefs regarding their own superiority tend to go hand in hand with beliefs of others’ inferiority (Back et al., 2013; Campbell et al., 2002; Kong, 2015; Krizan & Bushman, 2011; Park, Ferrero, Colvin, & Carney, 2013). These beliefs about others’ inferiority might be triggered by narcissists’ perceived hindrances to their own self-promotional efforts. Indeed, whereas narcissists have been found to attribute successes to internal ability more so than nonnarcissists, they have also been found to attribute their failures to the incompetence of their evaluators (Horton & Sedikides, 2009) or collaborators (Campbell, Reeder, Sedikides, & Elliot, 2000; Kernis & Sun, 1994). For the above reasons, narcissists might view their own derogating behaviors as justified attempts to claim or reclaim their rightful place in the social hierarchy and engage in such behaviors when situational cues indicate that self-promotion is unlikely to grant status.

In sum, after determining that a situation affords status, narcissists can appraise whether the situation calls for self-promotion or other-derogation as a means of status acquisition. Because of their beliefs in their own inherent superiority, narcissists typically prefer self-promotion over other-derogation. However, when narcissists are unlikely to meet the status demands by self-promoting, they may derogate others (e.g., belittle them, lashing out against them). Narcissists may view other-derogation as permissible and sometimes necessary because they tend to downplay its social consequences and often view hindrances to their self-promotion as unjust.

Response execution

Response execution refers to enacting behaviors that facilitate goal pursuit within a given situation. Responses are thus the behavioral outcomes of appraisals. We propose that narcissists are more likely to appraise situations as affording self-promotion and consequently more likely to behave in a more self-promotional, assertive attitude that aims to earn admiration, attention, and social influence (admiration pathway). However, when narcissists believe that self-promotion is less likely to grant status, they might follow a combative behavior that aims to devalue social competitors (rivalry pathway; Back, 2018; Back et al., 2013).

Social consequences of admiration and rivalry

Because status pursuit is embedded in social transactions, narcissists’ status pursuit can shape the way others relate and behave toward them. Adopting a person–environment-fit perspective, we suggest that the consequences of narcissistic behaviors are largely dependent on whether social environments are oriented primarily toward status (e.g., job settings) or affiliation (e.g., friendship settings). In status-oriented settings, narcissistic status pursuit might be especially advantageous for a continuous rise in status. In affiliation-oriented settings, however, narcissistic status pursuit might allow individuals to rise in status initially but can also lead them to lose status over time (see also Back, Küfner, & Leckelt, 2018).

Individual differences in status pursuit

Humans do not pursue status in uniform ways. Evolutionary models of personality underscore that individual differences in personality traits can reflect individual differences in the strategies toward the attainment of social goals, such as status (e.g., Cheng & Tracy, 2014). Narcissism might have evolved as a psychological mechanism that facilitates the pursuit of status (Mahadevan, Gregg, Sedikides, & de Waal-Andrews, 2016) because findings show that it is consistently associated with the successful navigation of hierarchies.

Our model can provide insight into why narcissism might differ from seemingly similar traits that are also associated with the pursuit of status. Some scholars have proposed that narcissism belongs to a broader group of so-called dark traits (including Machiavellianism and psychopathy; Paulhus & Williams, 2002) that represent a tendency to “maximize one’s own utility” while “disregarding, accepting, or malevolently provoking disutility for others” (Moshagen, Hilbig, & Zettler, 2018, p. 657). Although these personality traits are all linked to a relatively strong status motive, narcissism stands out as the trait most strongly associated with status motivation (Jonason & Ferrell, 2016; Jonason & Zeigler-Hill, 2018; Moshagen et al., 2018). That is, although individuals with psychopathy or Machiavellianism may pursue social status through the same self-regulatory processes as narcissists do, they probably do so with less intensity, pervasiveness, and rigidity. If this is the case, then they may pursue social status in more context-sensitive ways (e.g., only in settings in which social status can benefit or at least does not hinder their pursuit of other important motives). For example, Machiavellians are also oriented toward status, but they are thought to mainly pursue control over others (Lee & Ashton, 2005). Machiavellians might thus engage in similar status-pursuing processes that narcissists do, but perhaps only in situations in which status can enable them to acquire such control (e.g., in their jobs but not in their intimate relationships). In that sense, antagonistic personality traits may, in part, reflect individual differences in the strength or dominance of the status motive.

A within-person perspective on narcissistic admiration and rivalry

A long-standing challenge in personality research has been to integrate process models of personality (i.e., within-person models) that predict why the same individual behaves differently from context to context with structural models of personality (i.e., between-person models) that predict why individuals tend to behave differently from one another (Baumert et al., 2017). Some researchers (e.g., Geukes et al., 2018; Hopwood, 2018; Wrzus & Roberts, 2017) have recently proposed broad, generic models of personality that address this matter, decomposing trait concepts into momentary state processes, the recurrence of which can lead to relatively predictable and recurring outcomes that are perceived as stable, dispositional trait differences. We hope that our framework can contribute to this growing body of literature by providing concrete examples of how such processes might operate in the case of narcissism. Our framework assumes that individual differences in narcissism can be conceptualized as individual differences in a sequence of state-like processes that emerge in interactions with the environment when individuals pursue status. Viewing narcissism as a recurring sequence of motivated processes can enhance our understanding of why it tends to present itself differently across contexts, why it tends to present itself in similar ways within similar contexts, and how it potentially develops over time (Denissen et al., 2013). Thus, starting from a sequence of within-person processes of status pursuit, the SPIN model outlines process outcomes whose recurrence can lead to the stabilization and development of between-person differences in narcissism.

This within-person perspective is especially relevant in understanding the distinct manifestations of narcissism. Recent years have witnessed an upsurge in empirical and conceptual attempts to pin down the manifestations, structure, and nomological network of grandiose narcissism. This upsurge has culminated in the distinction between two interrelated trait dimensions: (a) narcissistic grandiosity (or admiration), which is correlated with agentic extraversion and sensitivity to positive rewards (i.e., high approach motivation) and can be manifested in self-promoting behaviors of status pursuit; and (b) entitlement (or rivalry), which is correlated with antagonism (i.e., low agreeableness) and can be manifested in other-derogating behaviors of status pursuit (Back et al., 2013; Crowe et al., 2019; Krizan & Herlache, 2018; Lange et al., 2018; Miller et al., 2017; Weiss et al., 2019; Zeigler-Hill, Vrabel, et al., 2018). Moving beyond this descriptive level, our model attempts to explain why these outwardly distinctive dimensions nevertheless represent the same construct, in what processes they differ, and how they might develop.

Extending existing theory, our model provides a motivational explanation of why admiration and rivalry represent the same construct (i.e., why they are both manifestations of narcissism). Scholars have suggested that admiration and rivalry share a common motive (i.e., the motive to become grandiose; Back et al., 2013). Extending this proposition, we suggest that the common motive underlying admiration and rivalry is the motive for social status. Preliminary evidence supports the idea that status motivation underlies both admiration and rivalry, as it shows that admiration and rivalry are more strongly associated with the status motive than with other social motives, such as the affiliation motive (Zeigler-Hill, Vrabel, et al., 2018).

Furthermore, our model illustrates why and how admiration and rivalry are distinct manifestations of narcissism. Our model holds that narcissists, after determining that a situation affords status, are more likely to appraise whether the situation calls for self-promotion or other-derogation as a means of status acquisition. Some situations might be perceived as facilitating the pursuit of status, possibly activating appraisals about the heightened utility of self-promotion and triggering self-promoting behaviors (admiration pathway). Other situations might be perceived as hindering the pursuit of status, possibly activating appraisals about the heightened utility of other-derogation and triggering other-derogating behaviors (rivalry pathway). Thus, moving beyond prior work on between-person differences in admiration and rivalry, our model illustrates why admiration and rivalry might reflect two distinct process outcome chains that fluctuate within individuals, depending on their appraisals of the social contexts.

Moreover, our model illustrates how individual differences in admiration and rivalry might develop through interpersonal transactions. Over time, the frequency with which individuals pursue status through admiration or rivalry may crystallize into more stable, trait-like patterns that represent between-person differences in admiration and rivalry (Back, 2018). If individuals primarily feel they can keep on earning status through self-promotion, they might be more inclined to behave in an increasingly self-aggrandizing manner (i.e., they might develop higher levels of admiration over time). Evidence in support of this hypothesis shows that narcissistic self-views are momentarily increased when individuals rise in status (Mahadevan, Gregg, & Sedikides, 2018). Likewise, if individuals primarily feel that their status pursuit is hindered and the main avenue to status is through derogating others, they might be more inclined to behave in an increasingly other-derogating manner (i.e., they might develop higher levels of rivalry over time). Confirming the basis of these assumptions, daily perceptions of status gain have been related to admiration, whereas daily perceptions of status loss have been related to rivalry (Zeigler-Hill, Vrabel, et al., 2018). Our model hence offers an integrative perspective into how intraindividual differences in status pursuit can stabilize and intensify interindividual differences in admiration and rivalry.

We propose that admiration represents the “default mode” of narcissists, such that narcissists display rivalry mainly when their self-promoting efforts have been frustrated. This suggests that antagonistic strivings (which we label rivalry) are essential in understanding the spectrum of narcissistic behaviors but that their emergence might be more situational, such that they characterize some narcissists more so than others. Indeed, although dark personality traits (e.g., Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and narcissism) share a common feature of antagonism, this feature seems to explain a relatively low proportion of variance in narcissism (Moshagen et al., 2018). Moreover, latent class analyses identified two subgroups of narcissists: those characterized by moderate levels of admiration and low levels of rivalry and those characterized by moderate to high levels of both admiration and rivalry. They did not, however, identify subgroups of narcissists characterized by moderate or high levels of rivalry and low levels of admiration (Wetzel et al., 2016). These findings tentatively suggest that, without exhibiting high levels of admiration, people are unlikely to exhibit high levels of rivalry. Drawing from these findings, we suggest that narcissistic admiration is the most salient manifestation of narcissism, with rivalry primarily emerging when admiration is not sufficient to establish status.

Development of narcissism across the life span

Our model proposes that the strength of people’s status motive underlies their narcissism levels. Some models of personality development suggest that developmental patterns of personality traits are guided by changes in motivation (e.g., Denissen et al., 2013). Thus, as the importance of status waxes and wanes across the life span, so might narcissism.

Current findings provide preliminary support for this hypothesis. Already from a preschool age, children start to reflect on their competences (Dweck, 2017) and compete with others for tangible resources (e.g., toys; Hawley, 1999). At this age, attention seeking and interpersonal antagonism have been found to be precursors of later narcissism (Carlson & Gjerde, 2009). Narcissism first emerges as relatively stable individual differences in self-views around the age of 7 years (Thomaes & Brummelman, 2016), a time when self-promotion gains ground as the primary route toward status attainment (Hawley, 1999), and children start to reflect on their social status through more realistic social comparisons (Ruble & Frey, 1991). Moving on to adolescence, mean levels of narcissism increase (Klimstra, Jeronimus, Sijtsema, & Denissen, 2018). This increase might be facilitated by physical changes such as rising testosterone levels (Braams, van Duijvenvoorde, Peper, & Crone, 2015), which might strengthen the motive for status during adolescence (see Terburg & van Honk, 2013; Yeager, Dahl, & Dweck, 2018). Social status indeed becomes highly important during this period (LaFontana & Cillessen, 2010) and is salient in adolescents’ fantasies: Adolescents seem preoccupied with their social image and appear to believe that others are constantly evaluating them (Elkind, 1967). Given the high competition for status in adolescence, adolescents may be susceptible to resort to both self-promotion and other-derogation in their efforts to establish their status in the peer group (Olthof, Goossens, Vermande, Aleva, & van der Meulen, 2011).

Mean levels of narcissism continue to increase (Klimstra et al., 2018)—or at least do not decrease (Grosz et al., 2017)—during young adulthood, because narcissism might have an adaptive function at this age. Narcissism might be beneficial not only for young adults’ amassment of sexual experiences (because narcissists are perceived as attractive; Dufner, Rauthmann, et al., 2013) but also for job acquisition. As unemployment rates in young adulthood are much higher than for other age groups (e.g., Eurostat, 2018), the competition for jobs may be fierce at this age. To land a job, young adults are often required to convince a potential employer—usually during a brief, self-presentational interview—that they are confident, ambitious, and talented. This sort of self-promotion often makes narcissists, who tend to thrive in self-presentational settings, the most appealing job candidates (Paulhus et al., 2013).

Cross-sectional evidence suggests that from young adulthood onward, narcissism tends to decline gradually (Foster, Campbell, & Twenge, 2003; Klimstra et al., 2018; Trzesniewski, Donnellan, & Robins, 2008). After young adulthood, individuals might have acquired a more consolidated status in their social environments (e.g., they usually have finished their academic development and have found employment), whereas goals pertaining to affiliation and intimacy (e.g., finding a long-term partner, procreating, spending more time with loved ones) might become more salient (Carstensen, Isaacowitz, & Charles, 1999; Erikson, 1959). Such a motivational shift from status to affiliation goals may also explain why narcissism tends to be on average less and less desirable as adults grow older (Berenson, Ellison, & Clasing, 2017).

Consistent with our model, these findings suggest that mean-level changes in narcissism across the life span may reflect developmental changes in the motivation to obtain social status. Narcissism seems to rise when status goals become more important but to fall when status goals become less important. Future research could examine this possibility directly, for example by examining whether mean-level changes in narcissism are mediated by mean-level changes in the salience of status goals across the life span.

Development of individual differences in narcissism

Because we argue that status motivation underlies the development of narcissism, our theoretical framework can also contribute to the understanding of how individual differences in narcissism might develop through the reinforcement of status pursuit across social environments. Narcissism is partly heritable (for a review, see Luo & Cai, 2018). At the same time, the development of narcissism is also thought to be shaped by socialization experiences (Kernberg, 1975; Kohut, 1971; Millon, 1969). Parents may reinforce narcissism by reinforcing the pursuit of status, and initial evidence supports this assumption. Narcissism seems to be cultivated, in part, by parental overvaluation, which is defined as parents seeing their child as more special and more entitled than others (Brummelman, Thomaes, Nelemans, Orobio de Castro, Overbeek, & Bushman, 2015). Overvaluing parents on average overestimate children’s IQ scores, overclaim children’s knowledge, and overpraise children’s mathematics performances, while pressuring their child to stand out from others (e.g., by giving them a unique, uncommon first name; Brummelman, Thomaes, Nelemans, Orobio de Castro, & Bushman, 2015). Thus, overvaluing parents seem concerned with their children’s social status. Parental overvaluation predicts narcissism in children over time, even when parents’ own narcissism, which is associated with parental overvaluation, is taken into account. This finding suggests that overvaluation might indeed influence the development of narcissism above and beyond genetic transmission (Brummelman, Thomaes, Nelemans, Orobio de Castro, Overbeek, & Bushman, 2015). Genetically informed studies should corroborate this.

Consistent with our model’s suggestion that status goals can direct the development of narcissism, some theories suggest that narcissism represents a sense of self defined primarily by external validation (Kohut, 1971; Winnicott, 1960). It is possible that parents of narcissistic children explicitly encourage them to value and pursue status, for example by pushing their children to stand out from others, by emphasizing the status-enhancing nature of their children’s accomplishments, or by making their approval of children conditional on the children’s attainment of a high status. When children gain status, parents may lavish them with praise (Brummelman, Nelemans, Thomaes, & Orobio de Castro, 2017), but when children lose status, parents may become cold (Otway & Vignoles, 2006) or even hostile toward them (Wetzel & Robins, 2016). Indeed, the experience that parents’ regard is conditional might be an important factor in the early development of narcissism (Assor & Tal, 2012; Brummelman, 2018), and future studies could explore this possibility directly by zeroing in on parent–child transactions.

Research on the development of individual differences in narcissism is still in its infancy. By proposing that the reinforcement of status motivation in the family might contribute to narcissism, our model creates an overarching framework that abridges theoretical suggestions and findings from socialization research on narcissism. In addition, our model generates novel hypotheses for future research, such as that narcissism may be reinforced across the life span by settings that reinforce status pursuit, even outside of the family. Narcissists might compete for status in their peer groups (Poorthuis, Slagt, van Aken, Denissen, & Thomaes, 2019), sports teams (Roberts, Woodman, & Sedikides, 2018), and occupational settings (Grijalva, Harms, Newman, Gaddis, & Fraley, 2015). As they move to increasingly high-status positions, their narcissism levels may further rise (Mahadevan et al., 2018). Combined with genetically informed studies, studies that address the lifelong socialization of status motivation might advance our knowledge of why and how some individuals might become more narcissistic than others.

Longitudinal tests of the model

Given that the SPIN model focuses on the moment-by-moment processes through which narcissists pursue status, we believe intensive longitudinal designs are well suited to test it. In such designs, researchers should assess the self-regulatory processes that our model proposes in real life, as they unfold in narcissists’ actual social interactions. This would allow researchers to test core assumptions of the model simultaneously.

One core assumption of our model is that narcissism is reflected in distinct self-regulation processes of status pursuit. According to the model, these processes can explain when individuals might engage in admiration and when individuals might engage in rivalry in their daily status pursuits. A challenge for the field will be to develop precise and sensitive measures for the self-regulation processes that underlie narcissistic status pursuit. To address this issue, future studies could use multiple sources of information in conjunction with self-reports to measure each process in the moment. Experience-sampling designs allow researchers to track these moment-by-moment processes in real time. Smartphones have allowed researchers to directly notify participants to fill out self-reports of their momentary experiences (Harari et al., 2016; Wrzus & Mehl, 2015), which may be particularly useful in tracking individuals’ vigilance and appraisals of their social contexts. To examine vigilance, researchers could measure how much individuals report being on the lookout for cues of status facilitation and status hindrance. To examine status-relevant appraisals, researchers could measure how much individuals appraise the situation as facilitating or hindering status pursuit. In addition to gathering such self-report data, studies could also benefit from using additional smartphone data, such as participants’ phone calls, text messages, location information, and Bluetooth connections, and they may use smartphones to record snippets of participants’ everyday conversations (Mehl, 2017). These valuable data can allow researchers to examine, for example, situation selection (e.g., where, or with whom, a person was) or interpersonal status-pursuing behaviors (e.g., whether they were bragging about themselves or spreading gossip about others; Harari et al., 2016). Combined with peer reports and direct observations, these data could add another layer of information regarding when individuals engage in admiration and when individuals engage in rivalry, as well as on the social consequences of these behaviors.

Our model also suggests that if individuals engage in these status-pursuing processes repeatedly, then these processes might crystallize into traits over time. Thus, the more individuals engage in the processes associated with admiration, the more likely they might be to develop higher levels of trait admiration over time. Likewise, the more individuals engage in the processes associated with rivalry, the more likely they might be to develop higher levels of trait rivalry over time. To test the long-term development of individual differences in admiration and rivalry, researchers should examine whether the proposed self-regulatory processes (as assessed through intensive longitudinal measurements) mediate long-term changes in admiration and rivalry over weeks, months, or even years. Ideally, such studies should start from early adolescence, when status becomes increasingly important and the transition to high-school enables the formation of new social hierarchies (Brown, 2011), and extend to adulthood, when individual differences in personality tend to become more stable (Roberts & DelVecchio, 2000). This might allow researchers to uncover how individuals might change over time in the way that they pursue status through admiration and rivalry.

Experimental tests of the model

The predictive power of the SPIN model can also be tested through intervention. As the model proposes a sequence of momentary processes underlying status pursuit, experimental interventions (i.e., field experiments) can attempt to change each of those processes to examine their downstream effects on status pursuit (see Hofmann & Kotabe, 2012). To be sure, the interventions we refer to are not therapeutic plans or ready-to-implement psychological intervention programs. Our model needs more empirical scrutiny before it can be translated to such plans and programs. Rather, we regard these interventions as tests of the processing steps that our model proposes. For example, if changing narcissistic appraisals affects the way individuals pursue social status (e.g., adopting the admiration pathway instead of the rivalry pathway) in their everyday lives, this would constitute evidence for our model. Researchers should be cautious when designing such interventions. Because status is a fundamental human motive (Anderson et al., 2015), such interventions might be ineffective or even backfire if they are designed in a way that frustrates status pursuit altogether.