Narcissus plays video games

Two phenomena of our time have fascinated the general public and the scientific community alike: (a) narcissism as a personality characteristic with important implications for daily social functioning, and (b) the (vast) use of digital media such as video games. But how are these phenomena related to one another? To investigate this question, we administered an online survey to 2,891 individuals to assess their levels of narcissistic admiration and rivalry (NARQ; Back et al., 2013) and their video-gaming activities (frequency of playing, reasons for playing, preferred game genre and role). Results revealed that these narcissism dimensions were differentially related to video gaming: Individuals high on rivalry played video games for distraction and preferred action games and acting as lone fighters; those high on admiration played video games to stimulate their imagination and preferred the role of team leader. Findings were robust when controlling for sex, age, extraversion, and agreeableness.