ISSN 0439-755X
CN 11-1911/B
主办:中国心理学会
   中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

心理学报 ›› 2022, Vol. 54 ›› Issue (3): 300-312.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2022.00300

• 研究报告 • 上一篇    下一篇

孤芳自赏还是乐于助人?员工自恋对亲社会行为的影响

刘文兴1, 祝养浩1, 柏阳2(), 王海江3, 韩翼1   

  1. 1中南财经政法大学工商管理学院, 武汉 430073
    2北京大学光华管理学院, 北京 100080
    3华中科技大学管理学院, 武汉 430074
  • 收稿日期:2021-05-07 发布日期:2022-01-25 出版日期:2022-03-25
  • 通讯作者: 柏阳 E-mail:ybai@gsm.pku.edu.cn
  • 基金资助:
    国家自然科学基金项目(72172157);国家自然科学基金项目(72132001);国家自然科学基金项目(72071086);国家自然科学基金项目(71972181)

Indulge in self-admiration or offer help to others? The influence of employee narcissism on prosocial behavior

LIU WenXing1, ZHU YangHao1, BAI Yang2(), WANG HaiJiang3, HAN Yi1   

  1. 1School of Business Administration, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan 430073, China
    2Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing 100080, China
    3School of Management, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China
  • Received:2021-05-07 Online:2022-01-25 Published:2022-03-25
  • Contact: BAI Yang E-mail:ybai@gsm.pku.edu.cn

摘要:

本研究通过整合自恋双元理论和特质激活理论, 探讨欣赏型自恋、敌对型自恋对员工亲社会行为的影响机制, 深入分析了员工关系趋近型动机和关系回避型动机的中介作用以及任务相互依赖性的调节作用。通过对来自员工-同事二阶段配对的235份数据进行分析, 结果发现: 欣赏型自恋对员工亲社会行为具有显著的正向影响, 敌对型自恋对员工亲社会行为具有显著的负向影响; 关系趋近型动机在欣赏型自恋与员工亲社会行为之间发挥着中介作用, 关系回避型动机在敌对型自恋与员工亲社会行为之间没有发挥中介作用; 任务相互依赖性不仅正向调节欣赏型自恋与员工关系趋近型动机的直接效应, 而且还正向调节着欣赏型自恋通过关系趋近型动机对亲社会行为的间接效应。

关键词: 欣赏型自恋, 敌对型自恋, 关系趋近型动机, 关系回避型动机, 亲社会行为, 任务相互依赖性

Abstract:

Narcissism is a personality trait characterized by an inflated self-image, a strong sense of psychological superiority and entitlement, and a low level of empathy. As narcissism has a substantial impact on employees’ work quality, happiness, satisfaction, and interpersonal relationships, employee narcissism has become an important topic of research among scholars and management practitioners, who have called for further research on the behavior of narcissistic employees in the process of interpersonal interaction. However, research on the impact of employee narcissism on prosocial behavior has reached inconsistent conclusions; thus, the mechanisms by which employee narcissism affects prosocial behavior need to be further explored. To fill this theoretical gap, we drew on the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Concept (NARC), and hypothesized that employees’ narcissistic admiration has a positive impact on prosocial behavior via relational approach motivation and that narcissistic rivalry has a negative impact on prosocial behavior via relational avoidance motivation. We further expected task interdependence, as an important situational factor, to directly influence employees’ expression of different narcissistic traits and motivation and their subsequent prosocial behavior.
We tested these hypotheses in a field sample of 235 employee-colleague dyads using a time-lag research design. The data were collected by administering the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Scale, the Approach and Avoidance Scale, the Task Interdependence Scale, and the Prosocial Behavior Scale. At Time 1, we collected the employees’ demographic variables (gender, age, and educational background) and asked them to rate their narcissistic admiration, narcissistic rivalry, and task interdependence. At Time 2 (approximately one month after Time 1), the employees rated their relational approach motivation and relational avoidance motivation, and their colleagues were asked to rate these employees’ prosocial behavior. We applied confirmatory factor analysis, descriptive statistics and correlation analysis, path analysis, and bootstrap methods using SPSS 24.0 and Mplus 7.4 to analyze the data from the 235 employee-colleague pairs.
Confirmatory factor analysis was performed to examine the discriminant validity of the key variables (i.e., narcissistic admiration, narcissistic rivalry, task interdependence, relational approach motivation, relational avoidance motivation, and prosocial behavior), and the results confirmed discriminant validity. Next, we used path and bootstrap analyses to test the hypotheses. The results were as follows: (1) narcissistic admiration had a significant positive impact on employees’ prosocial behavior; (2) narcissistic rivalry had a significant negative impact on employees’ prosocial behavior; (3) relational approach motivation mediated the relationship between narcissistic admiration and prosocial behavior, however, relational avoidance motivation didn’t mediate the relationship between narcissistic rivalry and prosocial behavior; and (4) task interdependence played a moderating role in the relationship between narcissistic admiration and relational approach motivation and further moderated the indirect effect of narcissistic admiration on employees’ prosocial behavior via relational approach motivation.
This study makes several contributions to the literature on narcissism. First, it explores the double-edged effects of narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry on employees’ prosocial behavior, thereby helping scholars better understand these traits. It also explains the inconsistent results of previous studies on the relationship between employee narcissism and prosocial behavior. Second, based on the concepts of narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry, this study explores the mechanisms of both traits on employees’ prosocial behavior. Although the mediating role of relational avoidance motivation was not significant, this gives us another important insight that future researches can try to independently examine the influence effects, mechanisms, and boundary conditions of narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry without being overly tied to the NARC framework. Third, by integrating trait activation theory, this study investigates the important role of a situational factor (i.e., task interdependence) in the relationships between narcissistic admiration, narcissistic rivalry, and employees’ prosocial behavior, which can help organizational managers better understand the roles of narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry.

Key words: narcissistic admiration, narcissistic rivalry, relational approach motivation, relational avoidance motivation, prosocial behavior, task interdependence

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