Vulnerable narcissism is related to the fear of being laughed at and to the joy of laughing at others

Abstract

Vulnerable narcissism is associated to the fear of criticism and rejection; however, to date no investigation assessed its relations to the dispositions towards ridicule and laughter, which is scrutinized in the current paper. The dispositions towards ridicule and laughter could be conceptualized as three distinct types of humor traits: gelotophobia (the fear of being laughed at), gelotophilia (the joy of being laughed at), and katagelasticism (the joy of laughing at others). We expected that, according to the complex structure of vulnerable narcissism, it would be positively related to gelotophobia and katagelasticism, reflecting social withdrawal on the one hand, and antagonistic orientation towards people on the other. The results supported our hypotheses, providing further evidence to the complex structure of vulnerable narcissism