New research sheds light on the relationship between narcissism and perceived power in ongoing romantic relationships. The study has been published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.

“We were interested in this topic because power is a fundamental part of romantic relationships in terms of how they operate and function. To some extent, we all want to influence our romantic partner to think, feel, or behave in a way that is consistent with our own preferences,” said study author Jennifer Vrabel, a PhD candidate at Oakland University.

“However, we believed that individuals with high levels of narcissism may care a great deal about having power in their romantic relationships because they are constantly trying to satisfy their needs to feel special and entitled. As a result, we wanted to investigate the effects that perceived power has on romantic relationship functioning for individuals with high levels of narcissism.”

The researchers examined two facets of narcissism: narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry. The former is characterized by grandiosity and charmingness, while the latter is characterized by aggressiveness and asserting supremacy.

A study of 375 participants found that individuals with higher levels of narcissistic admiration tended to report higher levels of perceived power in their romantic relationships. In other words, participants who scored high on a measure of narcissistic admiration were more likely to strongly agree with statements such as “I have more say than my partner when we make decisions in our relationship.”

The researchers then attempted to replicate and extend their finding with another sample of 352 participants. Unlike the first study, the second study also included an assessment of relationship functioning.

But the researchers did not find the same association between narcissistic admiration and perceived power in romantic relationships, suggesting the association is weak and inconsistent.

However, Vrabel and her colleagues did find that narcissistic admiration had a positive association with romantic relationship functioning, while narcissistic rivalry had a negative association with romantic relationship functioning.

In addition, there was evidence that perceived power moderated the relationship between narcissistic rivalry and relationship functioning. The negative association was particularly strong among individuals who perceived themselves as having lower levels of relationship power.

“The main take away from this study is that lower levels of perceived power may help explain the many difficulties (e.g., infidelity, communication issues) that individuals with high level of narcissism experience in their romantic relationships. For example, our results suggest that perceiving oneself as having relatively little power may be at least somewhat upsetting for individuals with higher levels of narcissism which may contribute to their relatively poor romantic relationship functioning,” Vrabel told PsyPost.

“The results of this research suggest that perceptions of power may play an important role in the attitudes and social behaviors of individuals with narcissistic personality features.”

Like all research, the study includes some limitations.

“One major caveat is that our research relied on self-report measures of narcissism, perceived power, and romantic relationship functioning. As a result, it is possible that our results may have been influenced by individuals claiming that power is evenly distributed in their relationship even if that’s not the case or reporting that their relationships are doing well when that is not the case,” Vrabel said.

“Future research may benefit from employing strategies that avoid relying exclusively on self-report measures (e.g., employing a dyadic design in order to acquire reports from both romantic partners concerning the distribution of power in the relationship).”

The study, “Narcissism and perceived power in romantic relationships“, was authored by Jennifer K. Vrabel, Virgil Zeigler-Hill, Mark Lehtman, and Karen Hernandez.