The moderating role of narcissism on the reciprocal relationship between social loafing and endurance performance

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Recep Gorgulu, Eslem Gokcek and Burak Eyler

Bursa Uludağ University, Faculty of Sport Sciences, Elite Performance in Sport Research Group (PePLab)

Citation

Gorgulu, R., Gokcek, E., Eyler, B. (2022). The moderating role of narcissism on the reciprocal relationship between social loafing and endurance performance. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 53(2), 134-148. doi:10.7352/IJSP.2022.53.134

Abstract

We aim to investigate the effect of narcissism as a personality factor on endu- rance performance task. We measured participants’ narcissism with self report mea- sures of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory -16 and their perception of effort via the Ratings of Perceived Exertion. We then obtained participants’ psychophysiolo- gical measures such as heart rate, heart rate variability and also body mass indexes. The final sample comprised 66 individuals (Mage=18.48; SD=1.50, n= 27 women, n= 39 men). All participants twice performed a multistage 20-meter shuttle run test in the same-sex teams of three: once when identifiability was low (team condition); and once when identifiability was high (individual condition). Our results revealed that narcissists’ performance significantly decreased from individual to team condi- tions, whereas others displayed no such performance differences. Our results support the hypotheses that narcissists performed better when there was a chance for glory and socially loafed when no such opportunity was available. Results of the present study provide a sound basis foundation for future studies (i.e., endurance sports) on which to explore narcissism as individual differences in the competitive environment.

Keywords: Performance, Narcissist, Individual, Group, Effort, Running

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