Sexual narcissism in this research:

Sexual narcissism is a specifc form of psychological entitlement. Where psycho- logical entitlement is a general and consistent inclination for an individual to have grossly favorable perceptions of themselves without reasonable justifcation (Brouer et al. 2011), in a sexual context. A sexually narcissistic person may believe that one has a right to sex and has a right to demand it whenever they want it (McNulty and Widman 2014). Widman and McNulty (2010) conceptualized sexual narcissism as a “personality style characterized by tendencies toward exploiting others, a general lack of empathy for others, a pervasive pattern of grandiosity, and an excessive need for admiration” (pp. 926–927). In popular parlance, sexual narcissism is often con- fated with “sexual entitlement.” We approach this distinction from the perspective of Widman and McNulty (2010), where sexual narcissism may be conceived as a larger construct under which sexual entitlement fts.

Four factors of the sexual narcissism scale:

(1) sexual entitlement, or the idea that a person is owed sex; (2) sexual exploitation, or how willing and able a person is to manipulate another in order to obtain sex; (3) low sexual empathy, or the devalua- tion of one’s sexual partners; and (4) sexual skill, or an infated sense of one’s sexual prowess.

Sexual narcissism is linked to sexual violence and sexual aggression across multiple studies (paragraph two of the sexual narcissism section). Additionally, to general narcissism and acceptance of rape myths.

Results:

The means and standard deviations for the study variables can be found in Table 1, as well as the correlations between measures. There was a signifcant positive cor- relation between sexual narcissism and adversarial sexual beliefs (r=.44, p<.001), and between sexual narcissism and use of dating techniques (r=.48, p<.001).

We used regression to test Hypothesis 1. By regressing adversarial beliefs on sex- ual narcissism, we found support for Hypothesis 1: sexual narcissism signifcantly predicted adversarial sexual beliefs, β=.44, t(214)=7.24, p<.001, 95% CI [0.63, 1.10], R2=.20. We tested Hypothesis 2 in two diferent ways: with linear regres- sion and with logistic regression. Using linear regression, we regressed a compos- ite variable of average endorsement of dating techniques on sexual narcissism and found support for Hypothesis 2: sexual narcissism signifcantly predicted dating techniques, β=.48, t(215)=7.95, p<.001, 95% CI [4.61, 7.65], R2=.23. Addition- ally, we regressed the dating techniques composite score on both sexual narcissism and adversarial sexual beliefs in a parallel analysis to the exploratory logistic regres- sions below. Holding adversarial sexual beliefs constant, sexual narcissism still sig- nifcantly predicted dating techniques, β=.47, t(213)=7.03, p<.001, 95% CI [4.38, 7.79], R2=.23.

From the discussion:

Not only was sexual narcissism related to problematic dating beliefs, sexual nar- cissism was also related to the use of dating techniques, specifcally techniques developed and endorsed by the pick-up artist (PUA) community. As participants’ self-reported sexual narcissism increased, so did the odds that they would be in favor of or actually have a history of using almost all of the manipulative PUA dating techniques. For individuals high in sexual narcissism, these techniques might be a path to meeting their sexual expectations. For example, when individ- uals feel they deserve sex (high sexual narcissism), per the teachings of the PUA community (note this is not the only setting men are taught maladaptive behav- ior toward women), individuals interpret women’s physical arousal as consent to sexual activity, rather than women’s verbal and afrmative consent (Denes 2011).

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12119-019-09618-2