Narcissism in Action: Perceptions, Team Dynamics, and Performance in Naturalistic Escape Room Settings
Reece D. Bush-Evans, Claire M. Hart, Sylwia Z. Cisek, Liam P. Satchell, Constantine Sedikides

TL;DR
This study explores how narcissistic traits affect team dynamics and performance in escape room settings.
Contribution
The study introduces a novel naturalistic approach to examining admirative and rivalrous narcissism in real-time teamwork.
Findings
High admirative narcissism was linked to perceived confidence but overestimated likeability.
High rivalrous narcissism was associated with being seen as aggressive and lazy.
Teams with high rivalry had reduced cohesion and poorer performance.
Abstract
We investigated narcissism in a naturalistic social context. Specifically, we examined how individuals high in admirative and rivalrous narcissism are perceived in team dynamics. Participants (n = 101) worked in small teams (k = 23 teams) during escape room-based tasks. Using a round-robin design, we observed alignment between self- and peer-ratings on interpersonal traits. Those high on admirative narcissism were perceived as confident but overestimated their likeability, whereas those high on rivalrous narcissism were perceived as aggressive and lazy. Teams characterized by high levels of rivalry exhibited reduced team cohesion, which in turn was associated with poorer team performance. There were no team-level effects for narcissistic admiration. The research advances understanding of admirative and rivalrous narcissism by simulating real-time teamwork in escape rooms.
Genes, proteins, chemicals, diseases, species, mutations and cell lines named across the full text — each resolved to its canonical identifier and authoritative record.
Click any figure to enlarge with its caption.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsPersonality Traits and Psychology · Psychological and Educational Research Studies · Team Dynamics and Performance
