Narcissistic and dependent behaviors in the Battle of the Sexes game.

ABSTRACT

We used the 2-person, 2-choice Battle of the Sexes game to model dominant and submissive behaviors in individuals with narcissistic and dependent traits in an online sample. In the Battle of the Sexes, participants share an interest in coordinating an outcome (either A or B). However, one player prefers they coordinate on Outcome A, whereas the other prefers they both coordinate on Outcome B. When provoked by a preemptive commitment (Experiment 1), we found that narcissistic traits were positively associated with dominant behavior, whereas dependent traits were positively associated with submissive behavior. In contrast, we found no association between either narcissistic or dependent traits and behavior in a condition without a preemptive commitment (Experiment 2). These findings are consistent with an interpersonal conceptualization of narcissistic and dependent personality disorders, though only when responding to provocation. These findings support the idea that narcissistic and dependent traits can be successfully modeled using economic games. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).