Testosterone and narcissism

Grandiose narcissism is defined as increased motivation for status and viewing oneself as entitled and superiorto others. We hypothesized that these tendencies might be associated with basal levels of testosterone becausetestosterone is considered the most social hormone—driving dominance and the motivation to achieve social status.We distinguished between two facets of grandiose narcissism: agentic (i.e., the tendency to self-promotion in orderto win others’ admiration and social influence) and antagonistic (i.e., a reactive strategy used to restore threatenedstatus). In 283 adult men, we examined the association between these facets of narcissism and blood-tested and selfreportedtestosterone levels. Agentic narcissism—the default narcissistic strategy—was positively associated with bothtestosterone indicators. Moreover, self-reported and objectively measured testosterone were positively correlated.These findings extend previous work by showing that the facets of narcissism have distinct hormonal underpinnings.