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Trumping Shame by Blasts of Noise: Narcissism, Self‐Esteem, Shame, and Aggression in Young Adolescents
Author(s) -
Thomaes Sander,
Bushman Brad J.,
Stegge Hedy,
Olthof Tjeert
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01226.x
Subject(s) - shame , narcissism , psychology , aggression , self esteem , social psychology , nothing , task (project management) , developmental psychology , philosophy , epistemology , management , economics
This experiment tested how self‐views influence shame‐induced aggression. One hundred and sixty‐three young adolescents ( M = 12.2 years) completed measures of narcissism and self‐esteem. They lost to an ostensible opponent on a competitive task. In the shame condition, they were told that their opponent was bad, and they saw their own name at the bottom of a ranking list. In the control condition, they were told nothing about their opponent and did not see a ranking list. Next, participants could blast their opponent with noise (aggression measure). As expected, narcissistic children were more aggressive than others, but only after they had been shamed. Low self‐esteem did not lead to aggression. In fact, narcissism in combination with high self‐esteem led to exceptionally high aggression.