Strategically out of control: A self-presentational conceptualization of narcissism and low self-control

•Narcissists indicated desiring low-self-control characteristics.•Narcissists indicated strategically engaging in low self-control.•Narcissists' high power motivation might account for these relations.•Narcissists' low self-control may, in part, be a staged.

Vazire and Funder (2006) suggested that narcissists struggle to control themselves and their characteristic narcissistic behaviors reflect this struggle. Here, we seek to propose a different perspective on narcissists' apparent struggle with low self-control. Because power is associated with freedom and autonomy and because narcissists have a heightened motivation to exude power, we suggest that they may intend to act in ways that imply they do not inhibit their urges (i.e., are low in “self-control”). In the present study, participants (N = 542) completed an index of power motivation, their prizing of low-self-control characteristics (e.g., being “uninhibited”), their strategic displays of these characteristics, and trait indices of low self-control. A path model revealed that narcissism was positively associated with power motivation, which in turn, related to prizing low-self-control characteristics. This enhanced prizing of low self-control characteristics, in turn, predicted participants' strategic displays of these characteristics, which, in turn, related to scoring lower self-control trait measures. The evidence is in line with the view that narcissists' apparent battle with self-control is actually a strategy.