Narcissistic individuals report feeling excluded more often in everyday life, and this link is driven by both how they perceive social situations and how others react to them, according to research published in the Journal of Personality & Social Psychology.

Ostracism (being excluded or ignored) is a psychologically painful experience with well-documented negative consequences. This study examines the role of narcissism, a personality trait marked by self-centeredness, entitlement, and a strong desire for admiration. The authors focus on grandiose narcissism in particular, which combines assertive self-enhancement (admiration) with antagonistic tendencies (rivalry). While previous research has shown that narcissists often react aggressively to exclusion, this study explored whether they may also be more likely to be excluded in the first place.

Christiane M. Büttner and colleagues explored this possibility by proposing three mechanisms linking narcissism to ostracism: (1) narcissists may be overly sensitive to exclusion cues and thus perceive more ostracism (negative perceptions), (2) their behavior may prompt others to actually exclude them (target behavior), and (3) repeated experiences of exclusion may reinforce narcissistic traits over time (reverse causality).

By combining large-scale surveys, daily diary data, experiments, and a 14-year longitudinal study across 77,000+ participants, this research provides an unusually comprehensive picture of this dynamic.

Study 1 relied on a nationally representative German panel survey in which 1,592 adults completed a brief narcissism questionnaire (NARQ-S), which includes items reflecting admiration (e.g., “Being a very special person gives me a lot of strength”) and rivalry (e.g., “Most people are somehow losers”). They rated how often they felt ostracized over the past two months. Participants also reported their self-esteem, which allowed the researchers to examine whether narcissism predicted ostracism independently of general self-worth.

Study 2 used an experience sampling approach to capture more fine-grained, real-world data. Nearly 500 U.S.-based participants completed a longer narcissism scale (the extended NARQ), a rejection sensitivity measure, and reported daily instances of exclusion over a 14-day period using a mobile app. They also estimated, at the end of the study, how often they had felt excluded, providing insight into whether narcissistic individuals overestimate exclusion.

In real-time reports, both admiration and rivalry facets correlated with more daily exclusion experiences, with admiration reaching statistical significance. Rivalry was more strongly linked to retrospective recall of ostracism. Narcissists also tended to slightly overestimate how many exclusion episodes they had experienced during the study period, suggesting a modest perceptual bias.

However, narcissism was not linked to the belief that one is excluded more than others, indicating that the distortion lies in recalling one’s own experience rather than making social comparisons.

Studies 3a, 3b, and 3c used the Cyberball paradigm, where participants experienced either clear (complete) or partial exclusion, and judged their inclusion level. These experiments tested whether narcissists were more likely to perceive ostracism in scenarios with clear versus partial exclusion. Study 4 shifted to ambiguous, everyday social scenarios to test whether narcissists interpret subtle cues as ostracism.

The final three studies examined the role of narcissistic behavior in eliciting exclusion from others. In Study 5, participants were given written profiles of potential teammates that varied in how narcissistic the described individuals were, and then asked how willing they would be to include or exclude these people.

In Study 6, a similar design was used, but this time participants watched short video clips of people displaying narcissistic traits and inferred their personalities. In both studies, participants were less inclined to include individuals described or perceived as narcissistic, especially those displaying high levels of narcissistic rivalry.

Finally, Study 7 leveraged 14 years of longitudinal data from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study, allowing the authors to track the long-term relationship between narcissism and ostracism.

Across the studies, a consistent pattern emerged: individuals with higher levels of narcissism, especially the antagonistic, rivalry-oriented type, reported being ostracized more frequently than those lower in narcissism. In Study 1, this link held even after accounting for self-esteem, suggesting the effect was not just about feeling insecure.

The rivalry facet of narcissism, which involves hostility and competitiveness, was particularly predictive of higher reported exclusion. Admiration, which reflects a more charming and self-enhancing style of narcissism, had a weaker association with ostracism in retrospective recall but was linked to more ostracism in daily life.

Study 2 confirmed this pattern using real-time data; participants higher in narcissism reported more daily experiences of exclusion, with admiration showing a significant association in the moment and rivalry more strongly linked to remembered ostracism. Narcissists also tended to slightly overestimate how many exclusion episodes they had experienced during the study, though the effect was modest.

Studies 3a–3c found that narcissistic individuals were not more likely to perceive clear, unambiguous acts of exclusion, but Study 4 confirmed that they were significantly more likely to interpret ambiguous situations as ostracism. This supports the idea that narcissists are hyper-vigilant to social threats when cues are subtle or open to interpretation.

Meanwhile, Studies 5 and 6 demonstrated that narcissists may also be more likely to be actually excluded by others. When participants were told about a hypothetical group member with narcissistic traits, or inferred those traits from videos, they were less inclined to include that person in a team, especially when the individual displayed high levels of narcissistic rivalry.

Finally, Study 7 revealed a bidirectional relationship over time: narcissism predicted future increases in ostracism, and being ostracized also predicted increases in narcissistic traits one year later. This suggests a feedback loop in which narcissism and exclusion reinforce each other throughout a person’s life.

Together, the findings illustrate that narcissists are not only more prone to perceive exclusion, especially in ambiguous situations, but may also behave in ways that lead others to socially reject them. Over time, these experiences appear to contribute to the further development of narcissistic traits, creating a self-perpetuating cycle.

The authors note that narcissism was examined in non-clinical student, community, and representative samples, so the findings may not fully generalize to individuals with clinically diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder.

The research, “Narcissists’ Experience of Ostracism,” was authored by Christiane M. Büttner, Selma C. Rudert, Elianne A. Albath, Chris G. Sibley, and Rainer Greifeneder.