Brayden Hall

So overall, yeah, participants, all of the undergraduate students we had in the study saw flirting as like this very uncommon thing that happens.

So we're looking at everything on the low end of the scale.

But we found that grandiose narcissistic students, so these students who think they're the best thing since sliced bread and whatever they want should be handed to them.

They were more likely to think that their professors are flirting with them, more likely to say they like, yeah, I flirted with professors, and more likely to think that this flirting is just happening more often all over the place.

So like, yeah, my friends do this with their professors and their professors do it with them.

Whereas vulnerable narcissistic students, so people who think the world has wronged them.

So, you know, woe is me.

I deserve special treatment because of that.

They thought that other people were doing it, but they didn't necessarily think that they were doing it themselves because they have the idea of like, oh, I'm like so ugly.

My professor would never flirt with me and I'm just too shy to flirt with a professor and stuff.

But all these other people are doing it.

Right.

Yeah.

Narcissistic people tend to have sort of a dimmer view of humanity.

So they overestimate how often immoral behavior is happening in the population.

We think this is because, you know, like birds of a feather flock together.

So narcissistic students or people tend to have narcissistic friends.

So when you ask your peer group what behavior they're engaging in, it's more likely that they are engaging also in this more immoral behavior.

Yeah, so the second part where the rules don't apply to me, that is more unique to grandiose narcissism.

And that's what's leading them to say they flirt more and people flirt more with them.