@article{ref1,
title="Reducing Narcissistic Aggression by Buttressing Self-Esteem: An Experimental Field Study",
journal="Psychological science",
year="2009",
author="Thomaes, Sander and Bushman, Brad J. and Orobio de Castro, Bram and Cohen, Geoffrey L. and Denissen, Jaap J. A.",
volume="20",
number="12",
pages="1536-1542",
abstract="Narcissistic individuals are prone to become aggressive when their egos are threatened. We report a randomized field experiment that tested whether a social-psychological intervention designed to lessen the impact of ego threat reduces narcissistic aggression. A sample of 405 young adolescents (mean age = 13.9 years) were randomly assigned to complete either a short self-affirmation writing assignment (which allowed them to reflect on their personally important values) or a control writing assignment. We expected that the self-affirmation would temporarily attenuate the ego-protective motivations that normally drive narcissists' aggression. As expected, the self-affirmation writing assignment reduced narcissistic aggression for a period of a school week, that is, for a period up to 400 times the duration of the intervention itself. These results provide the first empirical demonstration that buttressing self-esteem (as opposed to boosting self-esteem) can be effective at reducing aggression in at-risk youth.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0956-7976",
doi="10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02478.x",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02478.x"
}