Jordan, Christian H.Giacomin, MirandaKopp, Leia2020-10-132022-05-312022-05-312014Jordan, C. H., Giacomin, M., & Kopp, L. (2014). Let go of your (inflated) ego: Caring more about others reduces narcissistic tendencies. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 8, 511–523. doi: 10.1111/spc3.12128https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14078/1842Narcissists are known for having excessively positive self-views, but an equally defining characteristic of narcissism may be a disregard of other people. Could encouraging people to care more about others, or feel more connected to them, reduce narcissism? We describe a series of studies demonstrating that a more communal focus on others reduces narcissistic tendencies. In particular, repeating communal selfstatements (i.e., “I am a caring person”), recalling a time when one was caring, feeling empathy, focusing on monetary expenditures (which increases a sense of dependence on others), and interdependent selfconstrual all situationally reduce narcissism. These effects occur on a small scale but are significant because they establish that communal focus causes changes in narcissism. They also suggest that narcissism may have a state-like or context-dependent component, fluctuating across time and situations. Everyone may have the propensity to be narcissistic, but caring more about others may help to curb narcissism.enAll Rights Reservednarcissismcommunal focuscommunal self-statementsinterdependent self-construalchanges in narcissismnarcissistcaring about othersArticlehttps://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12128