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Narcissistic Qualities and Infidelity

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Handbook of Trait Narcissism

Abstract

There are various theoretical reasons to expect narcissistic qualities to predict own and partner infidelity. Nevertheless, as we review here, research has been inconsistent in documenting such links, with some studies providing evidence suggesting a link between narcissism and infidelity and other studies failing to document significant associations. As we also review, subsequent research has documented more consistent links between narcissistic qualities and infidelity using a measure of sexual narcissism that assesses the extent to which narcissistic qualities are activated by the sexual domain. These latter findings suggest that the inconsistent associations that emerge using global assessments of narcissism may emerge because such assessments are too coarse and thus fail to capture important nuance important to the link between narcissistic qualities and infidelity. Future research may clarify such links even further by examining the role of partner narcissism, the facets of narcissism, the specific mechanisms through which such links emerge, and the various moderators of these links.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

    James K. McNulty

  2. North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Laura Widman

Authors
  1. James K. McNulty
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  2. Laura Widman
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Correspondence to James K. McNulty .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Bradley University, Peoria, IL, USA

    Anthony D. Hermann

  2. Department of Psychology, Ohio State University at Mansfield, Mansfield, OH, USA

    Amy B. Brunell

  3. Department of Psychology, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, USA

    Joshua D. Foster

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McNulty, J.K., Widman, L. (2018). Narcissistic Qualities and Infidelity. In: Hermann, A., Brunell, A., Foster, J. (eds) Handbook of Trait Narcissism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92171-6_35

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