Narcissism and Self- Versus Recipient-Oriented Imagery in Charitable Giving

Prior research documents extensively that high-narcissism individuals largely tend to be self-centered and often lack empathy. This research outlines the charitable appeal types that can activate empathic responses and other-centered behaviors from high-narcissism individuals. Across four studies, we show that donors who are higher in narcissism exhibit greater charitable intentions when appealed to via imagine-self charitable appeals (as opposed to imagine-recipient types of appeals). Imagine-self appeals enable high-narcissism donors to project themselves into the recipient’s situation and, in doing so, elicit greater empathy and, consequently, greater charity. This effect dissipates when projecting oneself is very difficult or impossible—such as with animal recipients or the other gender suffering a gender-specific ailment. We also explicate the underlying process role of self-focused imagination and empathy in heightening charitable outcomes from high-narcissism individuals.