The narcissist’s sense of humor: a correlational and an experimental ego threat study on the links between narcissism and adaptive and maladaptive humor styles

Abstract

Previous research has shown that narcissism is linked to both adaptive and maladaptive forms of interpersonally relevant behaviors, such as charm and aggression, respectively. One line of research that uses styles of humor as the outcome variable found that especially grandiose narcissism is positively related to both adaptive affiliative humor (strengthening interpersonal relationships) and maladaptive aggressive humor (making derogatory fun of others) alike. This seemingly contradictory finding may be explained in two ways. First, particular facets of grandiose narcissism may be related solely to adaptive or solely to maladaptive humor. Second, adaptive and maladaptive characteristics may be expressed by a person to varying degrees depending on their current narcissistic state (i.e., whether the self is faced with ego threats or in a relaxed state). To test these assumptions, the present study applied both a correlational approach with multiple measures of narcissism and an experimental approach that used an intelligence-based ego threat task. The correlational results showed that each facet of narcissism showed distinct correlational patterns with adaptive and maladaptive humor styles. The experimental results showed that ego threat moderated the relationships between narcissism and humor styles. For instance, grandiose narcissism was more strongly positively related to affiliative humor in the nonthreatening condition and was more strongly positively related to aggressive humor in the ego threat condition. These results clarify and explain the previous seemingly contradictory findings and support the importance of differentiating between the facets and states of narcissism, highlighting the complexity of the construct.

Full text

Current Psychology (2024) 43:28999–29010
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-024-06528-x
relationships) and maladaptive aggressive humor (dened
as making derogatory fun of others; Lobbestael & Freund,
2021; Zeigler-Hill & Besser, 2011). These ndings seem
contradictory because, in most cases, personality constructs
are related to either adaptive or to maladaptive outcomes,
but not both.
In trying to explain these previous ndings, we suggest
two approaches. First, when looking at structural models of
narcissism (Krizan & Herlache, 2018), it may be plausible
to assume that there are some facets of narcissism that are
related solely to adaptive outcomes and other facets that
are related solely to maladaptive outcomes (Back et al.,
2013). Ignoring such potentially relevant dierentiations
may result in mixed or contradictory ndings as described
above. Second, these seemingly contradictory relationships
may be understood better by taking into account that the
behavioral expression of narcissistic characteristics depends
Narcissism has been shown to be linked to both adaptive
and maladaptive interpersonal behavior. On the one hand,
narcissism is adaptive, as it is associated with socially
condent, charming, and likeable behavior styles; on the
other hand, it is maladaptive and associated with insecure,
derogatory, and exploitative behaviors (Back et al., 2013;
Cain et al., 2008). One line of research on the covariates
of narcissism has used adaptive and maladaptive humor
styles. Previous studies in this eld have reported that
grandiose narcissism is positively related to both adaptive
aliative humor (dened as strengthening interpersonal
Tobias Altmann
tobias.altmann@uni-due.de
1 Department of Psychology, University of Duisburg-Essen,
Universitaetsstr. 2, 45141 Essen, Germany
Abstract
Previous research has shown that narcissism is linked to both adaptive and maladaptive forms of interpersonally relevant
behaviors, such as charm and aggression, respectively. One line of research that uses styles of humor as the outcome
variable found that especially grandiose narcissism is positively related to both adaptive aliative humor (strengthening
interpersonal relationships) and maladaptive aggressive humor (making derogatory fun of others) alike. This seemingly
contradictory nding may be explained in two ways. First, particular facets of grandiose narcissism may be related solely
to adaptive or solely to maladaptive humor. Second, adaptive and maladaptive characteristics may be expressed by a
person to varying degrees depending on their current narcissistic state (i.e., whether the self is faced with ego threats or
in a relaxed state). To test these assumptions, the present study applied both a correlational approach with multiple mea-
sures of narcissism and an experimental approach that used an intelligence-based ego threat task. The correlational results
showed that each facet of narcissism showed distinct correlational patterns with adaptive and maladaptive humor styles.
The experimental results showed that ego threat moderated the relationships between narcissism and humor styles. For
instance, grandiose narcissism was more strongly positively related to aliative humor in the nonthreatening condition
and was more strongly positively related to aggressive humor in the ego threat condition. These results clarify and explain
the previous seemingly contradictory ndings and support the importance of dierentiating between the facets and states
of narcissism, highlighting the complexity of the construct.
Keywords Narcissism · Humor · Ego threat · State · Experiment
Accepted: 5 August 2024 / Published online: 27 August 2024
© The Author(s) 2024
The narcissist’s sense of humor: a correlational and an experimental
ego threat study on the links between narcissism and adaptive and
maladaptive humor styles
TobiasAltmann1
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Current Psychology (2024) 43:28999–29010
on its current state, meaning, for instance, that the expres-
sion of narcissistic aggression may depend on whether the
self is threatened or in a relaxed state (Giacomin & Jordan,
2016). However, previous studies have mostly used single
measures of narcissism in correlational designs and there-
fore could not provide a sucient explanation for these con-
tradictory behavioral correlates of narcissism. To overcome
these shortcomings, the present study combines a correla-
tional and an experimental approach in conjunction with a
multifaceted measurement of narcissism to clarify the cor-
relational links and to provide a causal explanation of these
seemingly opposing associations with narcissism.
The structure of narcissism
A current denition of narcissism describes its core as “enti-
tled self-importance” (Krizan & Herlache, 2018, p. 6). It
entails viewing one’s own needs and goals as more relevant
than those of others and exhibiting an inated sense of one’s
own importance and deservingness, associated with ego-
tism and arrogance. There is an ongoing conceptual debate
about the core dimensions or facets of narcissism (Miller
et al., 2021) but also some consensus about the importance
of dierentiating between grandiose and vulnerable narcis-
sism (Krizan & Herlache, 2018; Wink, 1991). Grandiose
narcissism is characterized by extraverted, self-assertive,
vain, arrogant, and exhibitionistic thoughts, feelings, and
behaviors, whereas vulnerable narcissism is characterized
by hostile, insecure, withdrawn, defensive, and resentful
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (Cain et al., 2008; Miller
et al., 2021).
Grandiose narcissism has received considerably more
attention than vulnerable narcissism in the empirical litera-
ture so that detailed models have primarily referred to the
former. One frequently applied model separates grandiose
narcissism into admiration and rivalry (Back et al., 2013).
Admiration describes the adaptive, socially potent, and
agentic process of seeking conrmation of one’s inated
self-image; rivalry describes the maladaptive, socially con-
ict-laden, and reactive process of protecting the inated
view of the self against potential threats. Although several
other conceptualizations of narcissism exist, the above
model of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism with admira-
tion and rivalry as facets of grandiose narcissism ts well
with current integrative approaches (Krizan & Herlache,
2018).
In addition to these content-related questions about the
facets of narcissism, a second dierentiation refers to nar-
cissism’s short-term stability or arousability. Narcissism is
most commonly conceptualized and measured as a trait,
meaning that it exhibits stability and consistency over time
and across situations. Lately, however, state aspects of
narcissism have received more attention. In their seminal
study, Giacomin and Jordan (2016) found substantial day-
to-day variability in (grandiose) narcissism and showed that
its variability systematically covaried with daily interper-
sonal events. Interpersonal success was associated with an
increase in grandiose feelings, whereas interpersonal stress
was associated with a decrease, supporting the notion that
the expression of narcissism depends on situational states
such as whether the ego is threatened or not. Additional
support of the relevance of states for narcissism has been
provided by experimental research showing that ego threat
situations stimulate people high in narcissism to exercise
aggressive behaviors to re-establish their positive self-view
in the face of a threat (Bushman & Baumeister, 1998; Stucke
& Sporer, 2002).
Narcissism in social interactions and its links
to humor
As mentioned above, narcissism has been shown to exert a
palpable inuence on social interactions. Studies in this eld
have often focused on interpersonal conict and aggression
(Bushman & Baumeister, 1998; Stucke & Sporer, 2002) but
have also shown positive aspects of (mostly grandiose) nar-
cissism, such as being charming, outgoing, and entertain-
ing (Back et al., 2010; Paulhus, 1998; Wurst et al., 2017). A
previously studied correlate of narcissism that also encom-
passes both adaptive and maladaptive forms is humor (Mar-
tin et al., 2003).
A specic denition of humor is hard to come by (Martin
& Ford, 2018). Thus, previous studies have used the theo-
retically well-grounded humor styles approach by Martin
et al. (2003) instead. These authors described four distinct
styles of humor. The aliative humor style (e.g., making
harmless jokes) is positive and prosocial, with the goal of
strengthening interpersonal relationships. The self-enhanc-
ing style (e.g., nding humorous aspects in everyday life)
is also positive and is aimed at strengthening the self, espe-
cially in challenging situations. The aggressive style (e.g.,
making derogatory fun of others) is negative, antisocial, and
applied to strengthen the self at the expense of the derogated
others. The self-defeating style (e.g., making fun of oneself)
is negative and aimed at strengthening one’s relationships
with others at the expense of oneself. The rst two styles
can be summarized as the adaptive styles, which are typi-
cally positively correlated with constructs such as agree-
ableness, extraversion, well-being, and self-esteem. The
remaining two styles can be summarized as the maladaptive
styles, which are typically negatively correlated with the
same constructs but positively correlated with neuroticism
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Current Psychology (2024) 43:28999–29010
and aggressiveness (Greengross et al., 2012; Martin et al.,
2003).
In reviewing previous studies that have related narcis-
sism with these styles of humor, we found inconsistent pat-
terns of results across studies (see Table 1 for an overview).
First, for grandiose narcissism, previous ndings have var-
ied between signicant positive and nonsignicant rela-
tionships. Some studies have found positive relationships
with all four styles of humor (Besser & Zeigler-Hill, 2011;
Lobbestael & Freund, 2021), whereas others have found
mixed results with one, two, or three positive correlations
with humor styles in various patterns (Besser & Zeigler-
Hill, 2011; Hollandsworth, 2019; Veselka et al., 2010; Yee
& Lee, 2022). No studies have explored how narcissistic
admiration and rivalry (Back et al., 2013) are related to
humor. Second, for vulnerable narcissism, previous stud-
ies have found signicant positive, nonsignicant, and sig-
nicant negative relationships (see Table 1). The links to
vulnerable narcissism have been negative or nonsignicant
for the aliative and self-enhancing humor styles, nega-
tive or positive for the aggressive humor style, and consis-
tently positive for the self-defeating humor style (Besser &
Zeigler-Hill, 2011; Hollandsworth, 2019). In sum, previous
studies have found grandiose narcissism to be positively
related to both adaptive (aliative and self-enhancing) and
maladaptive (aggressive and self-defeating) humor styles
but inconsistently so. Regarding vulnerable narcissism,
research is comparably scarce and inconsistent to an even
higher degree.
In trying to explain these observed correlations, Abe and
Ota (2021) suggested that humor may be a coping strategy
that people high in narcissism employ in stressful interper-
sonal interactions. Supporting this line of reasoning, experi-
mental studies using ego threats to destabilize the fragile
but inated narcissistic ego (Bushman & Baumeister, 1998)
showed that people high in narcissism used aggressive and
derogatory retaliation to re-stabilize their positive self-view
in the face of a threat. Thus, such experimental approaches
may yield deeper insights into the interplay between nar-
cissism and interpersonal behaviors and may help clarify
the previously inconsistent and contradictory correlational
ndings on narcissism’s relationships with humor styles.
However, no experimental studies have tested the links
between narcissism and humor to date.
The present study
In reviewing the current state of research as described above,
we found that grandiose narcissism was positively related
to both adaptive and maladaptive humor styles (Besser &
Zeigler-Hill, 2011; Hollandsworth, 2019; Lobbestael &
Freund, 2021; Veselka et al., 2010; Yee & Lee, 2022), a nd-
ing that appears contradictory. Vulnerable narcissism was
primarily negatively related to the adaptive and positively
related to the maladaptive humor styles (Besser & Zeigler-
Hill, 2011; Hollandsworth, 2019). However, these previous
ndings have been inconsistent across studies. In addition,
most studies have used only a single measure of narcissism,
which did not allow them to dierentiate between relevant
facets. Experimental studies using ego threat tasks (Bush-
man & Baumeister, 1998; Stucke & Sporer, 2002) could
potentially causally explain how dierent states of narcis-
sism are related to dierent forms of adaptive and maladap-
tive humor, but such studies have not yet been published.
We thus conclude that replications are needed, a more com-
prehensive assessment of narcissism may be necessary to
explain the previous contradictory ndings, and experimen-
tal approaches may contribute to understanding the causal
links between narcissism and adaptive and maladaptive
humor styles.
Thus, the present study employed two approaches. First,
we used a correlational approach to replicate and clarify
previous ndings on the links between narcissism and
humor. We following the suggestions by Krizan and Her-
lache (2018) to measure narcissism by assessing grandiose
and vulnerable narcissism as well as narcissistic admiration
and rivalry. We posed the following hypotheses.
H1.1: Grandiose narcissism is positively related to the adap-
tive aliative and self-enhancing humor styles and the
maladaptive aggressive humor style. We posed H1.1
because grandiose narcissism has been found to be posi-
tively yet inconsistently correlated with all four humor
Table1 Directions of correlations in previous studies – linking narcissism and humor styles
Grandiose narcissism Vulnerable narc
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3
Aliative humor + 0 + + + + 0 0 – 0
Self-enhancing humor + + 0 + + 0 0 0 0 –
Aggressive humor + + 0 + 00 + + + –
Self-defeating humor + + + + 000 + + +
+ = positive correlation. – = negative correlation. 0 = nonsignicant correlation. 1 = Study 1 by Besser and Zeigler-Hill (2011), 2 = Study 2 by
Besser and Zeigler-Hill (2011), 3 = H oll a nds wo r t h (2019), 4 = Lobbestael and Freund (20 21), 5 and 6 = Veselka et al. (2010), 7 = Yee and Lee
(2022)
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Current Psychology (2024) 43:28999–29010
self-defeating humor. Thus, we generally expected that the
experimental condition (threat vs. no threat) would moder-
ate the relationship between narcissism and humor choice,
and we specied the following hypotheses.
H2.1: In an ego threat situation, higher grandiose narcis-
sism is more strongly related to lower aliative humor
than in a nonthreatening situation (negative moderating
eect).
H2.2: In an ego threat situation, higher grandiose narcissism
is more strongly related to higher self-enhancing humor
than in a nonthreatening situation (positive moderating
eect).
H2.3: In an ego threat situation, higher grandiose narcissism
is more strongly related to higher aggressive humor
than in a nonthreatening situation (positive moderating
eect).
H2.4: In an ego threat situation, higher grandiose narcissism
is more strongly related to lower self-defeating humor
than in a non-threatening situation (negative moderating
eect).
The lack of experimental studies on vulnerable narcissism
did not allow us to pose specic hypotheses about this form
of narcissism. Therefore, we posed the above hypotheses for
grandiose narcissism. We then conducted the same analy-
ses on vulnerable narcissism, but we considered them to be
exploratory.
Method
Sample
For the correlational approach, the minimally required sam-
ple size was determined to be 67 on the basis of an a priori
power analysis in G*Power 3.1 (Faul et al., 2009) set to a
power of 0.80 power, a minimal eect size of 0.30, an alpha
of 0.05, and one-tailed hypothesis testing. For the experimen-
tal approach, the potential eect sizes were unknown. Using
R2 increase in a regression model, we expected a medium
eect of f 2 = 0.15, resulting in a minimum required sample
size of 55 (α = 0.05, power = 0.80). However, the recruit-
ment strategy was to assess as many participants as pos-
sible during the assessment period to ensure higher stability
of the results (Schönbrodt & Perugini, 2013). The hypoth-
eses, sample requirements, and methods of both approaches
were preregistered separately before the data were collected
(https://osf.io/73k98 and https://osf.io/8dn9k).
Participants were recruited at the local campus using leaf-
lets and posts in social media groups. They were included in
the analyses if they provided complete data, reported their
styles, but its strongest relationships have been found
with the aliative, self-enhancing, and aggressive hu-
mor styles (e.g., Lobbestael & Freund, 2021).1
H1.2: Narcissistic admiration is positively related to the
adaptive aliative and self-enhancing humor styles.
We posed H1.2 because, as described above, admiration
has been proposed to capture the adaptive and socially
potent component of grandiose narcissism (Back et al.,
2013) and can therefore be expected to have a positive
relationship with the adaptive humor styles.
H1.3: Narcissistic rivalry is positively related to the mal-
adaptive aggressive and self-defeating humor styles. We
posed H1.3 because, parallel to the reasoning above, ri-
valry has been proposed to capture the maladaptive and
socially conicting component of grandiose narcissism
(Back et al., 2013), so it can be expected to be positively
related to the maladaptive humor styles.
H1.4: Vulnerable narcissism is negatively related to the
adaptive aliative and self-enhancing humor styles
and positively related to the maladaptive aggressive and
self-defeating humor styles. We posed H1.4 because,
although previous ndings were partially inconsistent,
these links seem most likely given the previous ndings
described above (Besser & Zeigler-Hill, 2011; Holland-
sworth, 2019). These links are supported theoretically
considering that people exhibiting vulnerable narcis-
sism have been described (see above) as hostile, inse-
cure, withdrawn, defensive, and resentful (Cain et al.,
2008; Miller et al., 2021), qualities that can be expected
to be negatively related to adaptive behavior styles and
positively related to maladaptive behavior styles.
Although the correlational approach described above can
identify bivariate relationships between narcissism and
humor, it cannot be used to infer causal relationships. There-
fore, the second experimental approach employed in the
present study tested for causal links. We applied a standard
intelligence-based ego threat task (Leary et al., 2009) that
threatened the positivity of participants’ self-image, espe-
cially their view of their intellectual abilities (which are
arguably relevant, especially in a student sample). To cope
with such an ego threat and to compensate for the threat
to self-image, people high in trait narcissism are expected
to engage in self-enhancing and other-derogating strategies
(Back et al., 2013; Bushman & Baumeister, 1998). In terms
of humor, this eect should be reected in the use of less
aliative, more self-enhancing, more aggressive, and less
1 We preregistered the additional hypothesis that grandiose narcis-
sism is negatively associated with the self-defeating humor style, but
after conducting a more thorough literature review, we found that this
hypothesis contrasted with previous ndings, so we could no longer
justify it and had to drop it.
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Current Psychology (2024) 43:28999–29010
minimize subjective diculty, all of them were solvable, of
low complexity and low diculty, with only four possible
solutions to choose from, and without a time limit. Thus, the
experimental and control groups completed similar tasks,
which diered only in the extent to which the tasks posed
a threat to the positivity of participants’ self-image on the
basis of the subjective experience of how dicult or easy it
was for participants to nd the correct answers. They then
completed the dependent variable, which was a vignette-
based situational assessment item on the four humor styles
described below. After completing the study, the participants
were debriefed in detail about the experimental manipula-
tion and the purpose of the study. They were then asked for
their informed consent again. To link the data across the two
parts of the study, participants provided a unique but anony-
mous code at the beginning of each assessment.
Measures
Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI)
We used the 13-item version of the NPI (Gentile et al., 2013;
Raskin & Hall, 1979), which assesses grandiose narcissism
(α = 0.60). The German version was created by Brailovskaia
et al. (2019). The NPI uses a forced-choice format in which
participants have to select the one sentence that describes
them best out of two choices, for instance, Option A: “I
insist upon getting the respect that is due me” and Option B:
“I usually get the respect that I deserve.”
Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale (HSNS)
The HSNS (Hendin & Cheek, 1997) is a 10-item inventory
of vulnerable narcissism (e.g., “I often interpret the remarks
of others in a personal way”; α = 0.79). As a brief version of
the narcissism scale by Murray (1938), it contains the key
aspects of the vulnerable or hypersensitive yet restrained
type of narcissism (as described above). We used the Ger-
man version by Jauk et al. (2017) with a 5-point Likert scale
ranging from 1 (does not apply to me) to 5 (applies to me).
Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire (NARQ)
The NARQ (Back et al., 2013) has been described by its
authors as a measure of grandiose narcissism but has also
been shown to capture entitlement as the common core of
grandiose and vulnerable narcissism and has therefore been
suggested to be included in comprehensive assessments
of narcissism (Krizan & Herlache, 2018; Schneider et al.,
2023). The NARQ contains the two dimensions admira-
tion (e.g., “I show others how special I am”; α = 0.85) and
rivalry (e.g., “Most people are somehow losers”; α = 0.82).
language level to be that of a native speaker or compara-
ble, and answered the attention check items correctly (e.g.,
“Please mark the highest answer”), which were interspersed
with the other questionnaire items. The nal sample used
for the correlational approach comprised 185 participants
(134 women), aged 18–57 (M = 24.9, SD = 9.3). Their level
of education was high, and 87.0% were university students.
The data are openly available at https://osf.io/g6nek/?view_
only=1879f196536e4be5aef78b1b5977a136. The nal
sample for the experimental approach included 155 partici-
pants (109 women), aged 18–57 (M = 25.1, SD = 9.6). Their
level of education was high, and 85.8% were university stu-
dents. The data are openly available at https://osf.io/g6nek.
Procedure
There were two assessments. The correlational part of the
study was conducted using online assessment software
(Unipark). Participants were instructed to complete the
online questionnaires alone in a quiet space on their own
devices. After providing informed consent and sociode-
mographic data, the participants completed the inventories
described below.
After participants completed the rst (correlational) part
of the study, we invited them to also participate in an alleg-
edly unrelated second study, which was the experimental
part of the study. This second part took place at least 1 day
after the rst assessment in supervised group sessions in PC
rooms on the local campus. Upon arrival, each participant
was seated at a separate desktop computer and randomly
assigned to the experimental group (N = 80) or the control
group (N = 75) without their knowledge.
In the experimental group, participants completed a stan-
dard intelligence-based ego threat task as frequently used
in previous studies (Leary et al., 2009). In this task, partici-
pants were instructed to solve ten 3 × 3 matrices with one
missing element by selecting the logically correct solution
out of eight possible solutions within 30 s per item. The
instructions were written to suggest that this was a standard
intelligence screening inventory. The matrices were taken
from the most complex (i.e., dicult) matrix items included
in the IST-2000-R intelligence test (Beauducel et al., 2010).
Eight of these matrices were manipulated to be unsolvable
to ensure that participants experienced failure. The partici-
pants did not receive explicit feedback due to prior experi-
ences in which this type of sample tended to suspect that
such feedback was fake. Instead, we chose an implicit feed-
back variant that was based on subjective item diculty and
failure to solve the tasks as also described in the review by
Leary et al. (2009).
In the control group, participants also had to solve ten
3 × 3 matrices with one element missing. However, to
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Current Psychology (2024) 43:28999–29010
Results
Results of the correlational approach
Table 2 presents the descriptive statistics. Descriptive statis-
tics by gender and tests of gender dierences can be found
in the Supplementary Material Table SM1. Table 3 shows
the bivariate correlations between narcissism and the humor
styles. The correlations we reported were controlled for sex
and age although doing so did not aect the results in any
meaningful way. The full correlation table (Table SM2) as
well as a correlation table that presents men’s and women’s
results separately (Table SM3) can be found in the Supple-
mentary Material. For grandiose narcissism (as measured
with the NPI), we found the expected positive associations
with aliative, self-enhancing, and aggressive humor styles
(H1.1). The previously found positive associations between
grandiose narcissism and both adaptive and maladaptive
humor styles (Besser & Zeigler-Hill, 2011; Lobbestael
& Freund, 2021) was thereby replicated in our study. As
expected, narcissistic admiration was positively associated
with the adaptive aliative and self-enhancing humor styles
(H1.2). Admiration was not associated with the maladap-
tive styles. Vice versa, rivalry was positively related to the
maladaptive aggressive and self-defeating humor styles
We used the German version by Back et al. (2013). We used
a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (does not apply to me)
to 5 (applies to me).
Humor Styles Questionnaire (HSQ)
The HSQ (Martin et al., 2003) assesses the use of humor
in everyday life. It covers four types of humor with eight
items each: aliative humor (benevolent humor to enhance
one’s relationship with others, e.g., “I enjoy making people
laugh”; α = 0.78), self-enhancing humor (benevolent humor
to enhance the self, e.g., “If I am feeling depressed, I can
usually cheer myself up with humor”; α = 0.81), aggressive
humor (malevolent humor to enhance the self at the expense
of others, e.g., “If someone makes a mistake, I will often
tease them about it”; α = 0.72), and self-defeating humor
(malevolent humor to enhance relationships with others at
the expense of oneself, e.g., “I will often get carried away in
putting myself down if it makes my family or friends laugh”;
α = 0.83). We administered the German version by Ruch and
Heintz (2016). We used a 5-point Likert scale ranging from
1 (does not apply to me) to 5 (applies to me).
Situational humor choice assessment
The HSQ as described above assesses humor as a general dis-
position and does not capture short-term or state-dependent
within-person variability. We therefore created a one-item
situational humor choice measure to assess this variability
for the experimental approach of the present study. Par-
ticipants were asked to imagine being in a social situation:
“You’re at dinner with friends. At the dinner table, you see
that one friend spills some food on his shirt.” Participants
were then asked to select one out of four comments that best
matched the response they most likely would have given
had they been in the described situation at that moment.
These four comments were designed to represent the four
humor styles presented by Martin et al. (2003). Aliative:
“Good idea, I’ll also have something packed to go”; self-
enhancing: “I know looking at me can be jaw-dropping”;
aggressive: “Well, that’s one way to express your opinion
about the dinner”; self-defeating: “That’s still all right, I
probably would have ipped the whole plate.” We argue
that these responses allow for a situational measurement of
humor preferences based on the participant’s current state.
Table2 Descriptive statistics
M SD Min Max
Aliative humor 4.22 0.53 2.00 5.00
Self-enhancing humor 3.23 0.72 1.38 5.00
Aggressive humor 2.54 0.66 1.13 4.50
Self-defeating humor 2.51 0.77 1.13 5.00
NPI 0.31 0.18 0.00 0.92
HSNS 2.64 0.67 1.20 4.40
NARQ Admiration 2.65 0.72 1.33 4.78
NARQ Rivalry 1.93 0.61 1.00 3.89
NPI Narcissistic Personality Inventory, HSNS Hypersensitive Nar-
cissism Scale, NARQ Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Question-
naire
Table3 Bivariate correlations between the measures of humor and
narcissism
Ali-
ative
humor
Self-
enhancing
humor
Aggressive
humor
Self-
defeat-
ing
humor
NPI .35 *** .19 ** .33 *** .03
NARQ Admiration .32 *** .27 *** .09 .09
NARQ Rivalry . 11 -.12 .40 *** .32 ***
HSNS -.19 ** -.19 ** .13 .32 ***
NPI Narcissistic Personality Inventory, HSNS Hypersensitive Nar-
cissism Scale, NARQ Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Question-
naire
All correlations were controlled for sex and age
*p <.05. **p <.01. ***p <.001
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Current Psychology (2024) 43:28999–29010
(H1.3). It was unrelated to the adaptive styles. For vulner-
able narcissism (as measured with the HSNS), we found the
expected negative associations with the adaptive aliative
and self-enhancing humor styles and the positive associa-
tion with the self-defeating humor style but not the positive
association with the aggressive humor style (H1.4).
Results of the experimental approach
To apply our experimental approach, we conducted a series
of moderator analyses using R 4.2.0 core functions (R Core
Team, 2022). Table 4 shows only moderating eects of the
regressions, and each regression predicted one humor style
choice from one facet of narcissism moderated by experi-
mental condition (i.e., ego threat). As expected, we found a
negative moderating eect of ego threat on the choice of an
aliative humor style for grandiose narcissism (H2.1). This
result means that grandiose narcissism was more strongly
negatively related to aliative humor in an ego threat situ-
ation than in a nonthreat situation. This nding was signi-
cant for admiration and rivalry (p = 0.029 and p = 0.004)
and nearly signicant for grandiose narcissism as measured
with the NPI (p = 0.064). Also in line with our expectations,
we found a positive moderating eect of ego threat on the
choice of an aggressive humor style for grandiose narcis-
sism (H2.3). This result means that grandiose narcissism
was more strongly positively related to aggressive humor
in an ego threat situation than in a nonthreat situation. This
nding was signicant for grandiose narcissism as measured
with the NPI (p = 0.031), admiration (p = 0.009), and nearly
signicant for rivalry (p = 0.069). By contrast, almost no
signicant results were found for the self-enhancing (H2.2)
or self-defeating humor styles (H2.4).
As an example of the moderating eects, Fig. 1 visually
represents the associations between grandiose narcissism
as measured with the NPI and the aliative and aggressive
humor styles moderated by experimental group. The left
diagram in Fig. 1 shows the negative moderating eect with
aliative humor style choice and the right diagram the posi-
tive moderating eect with aggressive humor style choice,
as presented in Table 4.
Discussion
Previous studies have shown that narcissism is linked to
both adaptive and maladaptive interpersonal behavior styles.
These seemingly contradictory ndings can be attributed to
the dierent facets (Cain et al., 2008; Krizan & Herlache,
2018; Wink, 1991) as well as dierent states of narcissism
(Bushman & Baumeister, 1998; Giacomin & Jordan, 2016).
In the present correlational and experimental study, we
Table4 Results of the Moderated regressions of the four humor choices regressed on the four types of narcissism moderated by experimental condition, showing only the moderation eects
Aliative humor Self-enhancing humor Aggressive humor Self-defeating humor
b SE p b SE p b SE p b SE p
NPI -0.65 +0.42 .064 0.13 0.40 .378 0.60 *0.32 .031 0.16 0.33 .314
HSNS 0.00 0.12 .489 0.07 0.11 .271 -0.01 0.09 .448 -0.04 0.09 .335
NARQ Admiration -0.22 *0.11 .029 0.01 0.11 .459 0.20 ** 0.08 .009 -0.01 0.09 .468
NARQ Rivalry -0.35 ** 0.13 .004 0.25 *0.12 .025 0.15 +0.10 .069 0.04 0.10 .355
NPI Narcissistic Personality Inventory, HSNS Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale, NARQ Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalr y Questionnaire
+p <.10. *p <.05. **p <.01. ***p <.001
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Current Psychology (2024) 43:28999–29010
H1.3. Thus, these results can be interpreted as explain-
ing the seemingly contradictory nding described above.
Assuming that the NPI measures grandiose narcissism and
that the NARQ dimensions admiration and rivalry distin-
guish the adaptive and maladaptive facets of said grandiose
narcissism, we can conclude that only the adaptive aspects
of grandiose narcissism (i.e., admiration) are related to the
adaptive (mainly aliative) humor style and thus to the ten-
dency to use humor to strengthen social relationships (Mar-
tin et al., 2003). In addition, we can conclude that only the
maladaptive aspects of grandiose narcissism (i.e., rivalry)
are related to the maladaptive (mainly aggressive) humor
style and thus to the tendency to use humor to enhance the
self at the expense of others (Martin et al., 2003). Using a
more generalized measure of grandiose narcissism, such as
the NPI, would then include both aspects, resulting in the
seemingly contradictory relationships as discussed.
For vulnerable narcissism, we found the expected pat-
tern of negative associations with the two adaptive humor
styles and positive associations with the two maladaptive
humor styles. These ndings generally supported H1.4 with
the only exception being the association with the aggressive
humor style, which was too small to reach signicance. Pre-
vious studies on this link between vulnerable narcissism and
the aggressive humor style have been highly inconsistent,
ranging from signicant positive correlations (Besser &
Zeigler-Hill, 2011; Zeigler-Hill & Besser, 2011) to signi-
cant negative correlations (Hollandsworth, 2019). The non-
signicant result in the present study could be interpreted
as indicating the actual null eect in the population. The
strongest association for vulnerable narcissism was found
with the self-defeating humor style, a nding that is in line
with previous studies (Hollandsworth, 2019; Zeigler-Hill
used humor styles as an example of interpersonally relevant
behavior that has both adaptive and maladaptive aspects and
is also state-dependent (Martin et al., 2003; Martin & Ford,
2018). The ndings from the correlational approach con-
tribute to clarifying the inconsistencies in the literature and
explain the seemingly contradictory links between gran-
diose narcissism and the adaptive and maladaptive humor
styles. The ndings from the experimental approach showed
the expected causal links in these relationships.
Discussion of the correlational ndings
Our correlational ndings show that each type of narcissism
is represented by a distinct pattern of correlations with the
four humor styles. Grandiose narcissism (as measured with
the NPI; Raskin & Hall, 1979) was linked to aliative, self-
enhancing, and aggressive humor styles, supporting H1.1.
This nding replicates the abovementioned seemingly con-
tradictory results linking narcissism to both adaptive and
maladaptive behaviors found in previous studies (Lobbes-
tael & Freund, 2021; Zeigler-Hill & Besser, 2011), although
not consistently so (Hollandsworth, 2019; Veselka et al.,
2010).
To better understand these links to both adaptive and
maladaptive humor styles, we included admiration and
rivalry as facets of grandiose narcissism (Back et al., 2013)
in the present study. Admiration as the adaptive component
showed positive associations with the adaptive (i.e., ali-
ative and self-enhancing) humor styles and not with the
maladaptive ones, supporting H1.2. Vice versa, rivalry as
the maladaptive component showed positive associations
with the maladaptive (i.e., aggressive and self-defeating)
humor styles and not with the adaptive ones, supporting
Fig.1 Plots of two examples of moderated regressions. Note. The left
diagram shows the moderated regression between the NPI total score
and the aliative humor choice (odds of selecting the aliative humor
response). The right diagram shows the moderated regression between
the NPI total score and the aggressive humor choice (odds of selecting
the aggressive humor response). Solid lines describe the experimental
group, dashed lines describe the control group; grey areas reect the
95% condence intervals
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Current Psychology (2024) 43:28999–29010
between grandiose narcissism and the aliative and aggres-
sive humor styles depend on whether the ego was threatened
or not. Nonthreatened narcissism is related to more alia-
tive and less aggressive humor style choices, and narcissism
under ego threat is related to less aliative and more aggres-
sive humor style choices. These results were the strongest
for grandiose narcissism as measured with the NPI but also
for admiration and rivalry as facets of grandiose narcissism.
We argue that these experimental ndings can help
explain the correlational results discussed above. It may be
argued that people high in narcissism provide accurate self-
reports in questionnaire assessments because they indeed
use both adaptive and maladaptive styles. Our ndings con-
rm that they may do so dierently in specic situations
(Giacomin & Jordan, 2016), adding experimental evidence
to the previous research. Thus, to understand grandiose nar-
cissism, the dierent states of narcissism may need to be
taken into account to make its links to both adaptive and
maladaptive behavior plausible.
We did not pose any hypotheses on vulnerable narcis-
sism in the experimental part of the study due to the lack
of previous research. Our ndings in this regard turned out
to be nonsignicant for all four humor styles and may thus
be interpreted in two ways. First, vulnerable narcissism has
been conceptualized as relatively unrelated to aggressive
behavior, and so the present results might be attributed to
this conceptual independence from aggressiveness (Wink,
1991), although this view has been challenged in current
approaches (Krizan & Johar, 2015). Second, the HSNS (i.e.,
the measure applied in the present study to assess vulnerable
narcissism) might not capture the aggressive component of
vulnerable narcissism suciently. Other measures such as
the Pathological Narcissism Inventory (Pincus et al., 2009),
which includes entitlement rage as one facet of vulnerable
narcissism, might be better suited to detect such links to
maladaptive interpersonal behavior. Either way, vulnerable
narcissism has not received as much attention as grandiose
narcissism, and thus, both conceptual and empirical work is
needed for clarication (Miller et al., 2021).
Limitations
This study contains several limitations that should be dis-
cussed. First, ndings related to narcissism may show a cer-
tain degree of measure dependency (Ackerman et al., 2011;
Schneider et al., 2023). In this study, we administered three
measures to take a comprehensive approach to the assess-
ment of narcissism (as recommended by Krizan & Herlache,
2018) and thereby add to the previous literature, which
mostly relied on only one of these measures. However, it
may be useful for future studies to take this approach further
and use multiple measures for each dimension of narcissism
& Besser, 2011). The pattern of results also ts well with
the theoretical concept of vulnerable narcissism, which is
characterized by entitlement but also withdrawal (Krizan
& Herlache, 2018). People high in vulnerable narcissism
expect people in their environment to admire their grandios-
ity, but at the same time, they show resentment, withdraw
from social situations, and reject appreciation with (false)
modesty (Hart et al., 2017). In line with this reasoning, vul-
nerable narcissism also showed the expected negative links
to the two adaptive humor styles (i.e., aliative and self-
enhancing) in our study.
In sum, we found narcissism to be related to both adap-
tive and maladaptive behavior, and part of this inconsis-
tency could be accounted for by dierentiating between the
adaptive and maladaptive facets of grandiose narcissism.
However, alternative approaches in this regard could also
be considered. For instance, it may be worthwhile to look
at dierences in the cultural backgrounds of the samples
assessed in the previous literature. The range of countries
from which samples were acquired in the previous literature
include the US (Hollandsworth, 2019), Canada (Martin et
al., 2012; Veselka et al., 2010), the Netherlands (Holland-
sworth, 2019), and Israel (Besser & Zeigler-Hill, 2011; Zei-
gler-Hill & Besser, 2011). Thus, integrating such diversity
from culturally distant areas of the world into a single study
with samples from multiple countries might reveal substan-
tial cultural dependencies (Hofstede, 2011). Such cultural
dependencies may be related to narcissism, humor, or their
interrelationships. Cross-cultural research has often contrib-
uted to understanding complex interpersonal phenomena
such as aggression (Archer, 2006), friendship (Altmann,
2021; Baumgarte, 2016), narcissism (Foster et al., 2003),
and humor (Martin & Ford, 2018) and may therefore con-
tribute to the present eld of study as well.
Discussion of the experimental ndings
As described above, we found narcissism to be related to
both adaptive and maladaptive behavior. This nding was
especially true for grandiose narcissism (as measured with
the NPI), which was positively correlated with both alia-
tive and aggressive humor styles, replicating previous nd-
ings (Besser & Zeigler-Hill, 2011; Lobbestael & Freund,
2021). With the experimental approach applied in the pres-
ent study, we aimed to explain this seemingly controversial
nding by testing whether ego-threatened and nonthreat-
ened narcissism had dierent associations with adaptive and
maladaptive situational humor style choices. We found sup-
port for our hypotheses on the aliative (H2.1) and aggres-
sive (H2.3) humor styles but no support for the hypotheses
on the self-enhancing (H2.2) or self-defeating humor styles
(H2.4). Specically, our ndings show that the relationships
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Current Psychology (2024) 43:28999–29010
Competing interests We have no known conicts of interest to de-
clare.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing,
adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format,
as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the
source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate
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use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted
use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright
holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.
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to better estimate the latent traits and their latent relation-
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Regarding the experimental approach, a third limitation
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procedure frequently applied in previous research (Leary et
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the eects of the manipulation might not be strong or endur-
ing enough to rst aect the manipulation check and after-
wards still aect the humor style choices as the primary
dependent variable. Nevertheless, such a check is necessary
in future studies to rule out alternative explanations.
Lastly, the present sample’s level of education was high.
Although participants are typically well-educated in this
eld of research, generalizability is limited when using sam-
ples with a narrow educational background. Future studies
are needed to test whether the ndings presented here and
in previous studies are consistent across participants with
dierent levels of education.
Supplementary Information The online version contains
supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-
024-06528-x.
Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt
DEAL. No funding was received for conducting this study.
Data availability We made our data openly available at /?view_only=
1879f196536e4be5aef78b1b5977a136.
Declarations
Consent to participate Informed consent was obtained from all par-
ticipants.
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