CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 370Personality Traits and PsychologyExperimental Behavioral Economics StudiesDeath Anxiety and Social Exclusion

Understanding the Social Costs of Narcissism: The Case of the Tragedy of the Commons

Campbell, W. Keith, Bush, Carrie Pierce, Brunell, Amy B., Shelton, Jeremy·2005·Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
DOI 10.1177/0146167205274855
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Two studies examined narcissism and behavior in a commons dilemma. Study 1 used a four-person, laboratory-based task and Study 2 used a dyadic task. Participants were told that they represented one of four (Study 1) or two (Study 2) forestry companies and then were asked to harvest timber from a renewable forest. Narcissism was found to be positively related to acquisitive goals and harvesting more timber in the initial round. The more narcissists harvesting in the competitive group of four (Study 1) or dyad (Study 2), the less timber was harvested overall and the more rapidly the forest was depleted. Within competitive groups and dyads, however, narcissists harvested more than the nonnarcissists competing with them. In all, narcissism provided a benefit to the self, but at a long-term cost to other individuals and to the commons.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1177/0146167205274855

Cites

48 of 48 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Narcissists are more likely to make high-risk investments and will less hesitantly attempt to maximize short-term profits at the cost of long-term losses.

    “They are more likely to make high-risk investments (Foster, Reidy, Misra, & Goff, 2011) and will less hesitantly attempt to maximize short-term profits at the cost of long-term losses (Campbell, Bush, Brunell, & Shelton, 2005).”

    From The "Why" and "How" of Narcissism: A Process Model of Narcissistic Status Pursuit (2020) · cites this paper as Campbell, Bush, Brunell, & Shelton, 2005

  • Narcissists used a greater proportion of shared environmental resources in attempts to supersede others in performance, ignoring environmental costs and long-term resource depletion.

    “In one study, narcissists used a greater proportion of shared environmental resources in their attempt to supersede others in performance, ignoring the fact that their behavior would result in environmental costs and in a long-term depletion of the resources required to maintain their status (Campbell et al., 2005).”

    From The "Why" and "How" of Narcissism: A Process Model of Narcissistic Status Pursuit (2020) · cites this paper as Campbell et al., 2005

  • In narcissistic personality disorder, hypersensitivity to the evaluations of others and fluctuation in self-esteem between grandiose and depleted states are associated with an increased risk of both suicidal and non-suicidal self-injury.

    “In narcissistic personality disorder, there is frequently a hypersensitivity to the evaluations of others and a fluctuation in the self-esteem between grandiose and depleted states, depending on life circumstances [16, 17]; these are personality features associated with an increased risk of both suicidal and non-suicidal self-injury [18, 19].”

    From Euthanasia and assisted suicide in patients with personality disorders: a review of current practice and challenges (2020) · cites this paper as [19]

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

3 of the 51 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Campbell, W. K., Bush, C. P., Brunell, A. B., & Shelton, J.
Affiliations
  • University of Georgia (US)
  • Lamar University (US)
Corresponding author
Campbell, W. Keith
ORCID
Venue
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2005-10
Volume
31
Issue
10
Pages
1358-1368
ISSN
  • 0146-1672 (ISSN-L)
  • 1552-7433
DOI
10.1177/0146167205274855
OpenAlex
W2146974039
Cited by
370
References
51
Citations by year
2026: 11 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 17 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 25 · 2020: 26 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 31 · 2017: 18 · 2016: 24 · 2015: 24 · 2014: 20 · 2013: 27 · 2012: 11
FWCI
8.10
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
  • Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
Keywords
narcissism, tragedy of the commons, commons dilemma, competitive behavior, group competition, dyadic interaction, logging, resource depletion, self-interest
MeSH terms
Adult, Cognition, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Male, Narcissism, Personality Inventory, Self Concept, Social Behavior

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review