Domestic violence
Many studies have explored the relationship between narcissism and intimate partner violence, often informally called domestic violence. In general,
- vulnerable narcissism is moderately associated with intimate partner violence, with correlations approaching about .25,
- in contrast, grandiose narcissism is not as strongly associated with intimate partner violence, with correlations closer to only .11.
Specifically, these results were derived from a meta-analysis, published by Oliver et al. (2024). This meta-analysis uncovered 22 studies, comprising over 11 500 participants, that explored both narcissism and intimate partner violence. Many other terms were utilised to uncover these publications, including domestic abuse, spousal violence, intimate assault, and so forth. These studies examined many variants of intimate partner violence, including cyberstalking, psychological abuse, and physical violence. As a random effects meta-analysis revealed,
- narcissism was more strongly associated with cyberviolence and psychological violence than physical violence,
- intimate partner violence was more strongly associated with vulnerable narcissism than grandiose narcissism,
- the association between narcissism and intimate partner violence did not significantly depend on whether the perpetrator was male or female.
Vulnerable narcissism and grandiose narcissism differ not only on the level of association with intimate partner violence but also with the events that incite this violence. For example, as two academics at Edinburgh Napier University, Ava Green and Kathy Charles, revealed in 2019, people who exhibit vulnerable narcissism tend to explode with rage in response to hints their partner might leave the relationship, regardless of whether these hints are accurate or misguided. In contrast, people who exhibit grandiose narcissism are more likely to respond violently to comments or events that threaten their self-esteem, authority, status, or competence.
Although the AXIS tool indicated the studies were generally high in quality, Oliver et al. (2024) did acknowledge some limitations in past research on this topic. For example, the measures were usually self-report scales. When completing these measures, participants are often unwilling to concede they perpetrated intimate partner violence, potentially diminishing statistical power and thus obscuring some of the relationships.
Bullying
Workplace Bullying
Bullying tends to be defined as repeated acts towards other people that are damaging or demeaning (Rai & Agarwal, 2018). Research has revealed that narcissism, together with other undesirable personality traits, sometimes called the dark triad or dark tetrad, increases the likelihood that someone will perpetrate bullying in the workplace. To illustrate, in one study, conducted by Fernández-del-Río et al. (2021), 613 employees, from a range of Spanish organisations, completed a questionnaire. The questionnaire included the following scales to measure narcissism, the other dark traits, other personality traits, as well as bullying:
- the Dark Tetrad at Work Scale (Thibault & Kelloway, 2020), designed to measure narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy, and sadism, including items such as “I am much more valuable than my coworkers”,
- the NEO-FFI (Costa & McCrae, 2008) to measure the key factors of personality: extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience,
- the Negative-Acts-Questionnaire-Perpetrators to assess the degree to which these participants have perpetrated bullying—as well as another measure to assess the degree to which these participants have been the targets of bullying.
As hierarchical regression analysis revealed, people who reported elevated levels of narcissism and sadism were more likely to perpetrate acts of bullying. These relationships were observed after controlling the other dark traits, the five personality traits, gender, age, and years in the job. Arguably, some narcissist individuals, especially if they exhibit vulnerable narcissism, may feel compelled to denigrate, and thus bully, other people to maintain or to boost their own status. Other narcissistic individuals, especially if they exhibit grandiose narcissism, may become hostile towards anyone who challenges their capabilities or questions their authority; this hostility might evolve into bullying over time.
Adolescent bullying
Many studies have explored the association between narcissism and bullying in adolescents. A meta-analysis, conducted and published by Schunck et al. (2025) for example, revealed that, in general, narcissistic adolescents are more likely to perpetrate bullying acts, although the effect size is not especially pronounced.
Specifically, to conduct this meta-analysis, the researchers unearthed studies that examine bullying, narcissism, and adolescence. Publications were included if the participants were aged between 12 and 18, if the researchers had collected the data, if the article was written in English, and if the paper had been peer-reviewed. This search uncovered 24 research studies. To measure narcissism, most but not all studies utilised
- the Narcissistic Personality Questionnaire for Children-Revised (Ang & Raine, 2009), such as “If I ruled the world, it would be a better place”,
- the Childhood Narcissism Scale (Thomaes et al., 2008),
- the Dirty Dozen Scale to measure the dark triad (Jonason & Webster, 2010), or
- the Antisocial Process Screening Device.
The studies assessed many variants of bullying, such as beliefs about aggression, cyberbullying, ringleader bullying, and general bullying. The meta-analysis, coupled with a narrative synthesis, revealed that
- the correlation between narcissism and bullying is, on average, about 0.2—suggesting that many other characteristics and circumstances also shape the incidence of bullying, such as the culture of a school or setting,
- grandiose narcissism, in which individuals tend to inflate their capabilities, achievements, and authority, increases the likelihood that adolescents may assume the role of a bully,
- vulnerable narcissism, in which individuals tend to depict themselves as victims and undermine other people, increases the likelihood that adolescents may participate in cyber-bullying or even be the target of bullying—although few studies differentiated grandiose and vulnerable narcissism (for an exception, see Fan et al., 2019).