Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/227730 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Citation: 
[Journal:] Applied Economics Letters [ISSN:] 1466-4291 [Issue:] Latest Articles [Publisher:] Taylor & Francis [Year:] 2020
Publisher: 
Taylor & Francis
Abstract: 
We study the relationship between positional preferences (i.e., preferences concerning the relative rank or position in comparison to others) and narcissism. We distinguish two dimensions of narcissism: Narcissistic admiration captures self-enhancement through searching for being admired, and narcissistic rivalry captures self-defense through an antagonistic orientation toward others. We use six “money burning” mini-dictator games to measure positional preferences. Controlling for other relevant individual characteristics such as the Big Five personality traits and gender, we find evidence that narcissistic admiration is a negative predictor and narcissistic rivalry a positive predictor of positional preferences. We further find exploratory evidence that studying business or economics as a major (vs. minor) subject is associated with less positional preferences and that the relationships between narcissism and positional preferences are mediated by decision makers’ expectations with regard to other players’ choices.
Subjects: 
narcissism
narcissistic admiration
narcissistic rivalry
positional concerns
positional preferences
relative concerns
JEL: 
A12
A13
D01
D63
Published Version’s DOI: 
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Manuscript Version (Preprint)
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