Addressing the Mediating Role of Emotional Manipulation for the Association Between Narcissism and Interpersonal Relationship Among Married Individuals

Attachment theory posits that the quality of attachment formed in infancy lays the foundation for internal working models of relationships. The current study was designed to investigate the mediating role of emotional manipulation in the relationship between narcissism and interpersonal relationships among married individuals. Emotional manipulation includes the ability to influence another individual's feelings and behaviours for one's own self-interest or benefit. A sample of (N = 100) married individuals was taken from different areas of Punjab by using the Purposive Convenient Sampling technique. Along with the demographic sheet, data were collected on the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire (Back et al., 2013), the Emotional Manipulation Scale (Austin et al., 2007), and the Relationship Closeness Inventory (Berscheid et al., 1988). Results indicated that narcissism has a significant positive interaction with emotional manipulation, whereas it has a non-significant interaction with interpersonal relationships. It also revealed that emotional manipulation has a significant positive interaction with interpersonal relationships. Mediation analysis showed that significant indirect effect of narcissism on emotional manipulation (b = .35, p = .000) and subsequently emotional manipulation on interpersonal relationship (b = .63, p = .000). Furthermore the direct effect of narcissism on interpersonal relationship in the presence of emotional manipulation was found to be non-significant (b = -.14, p = .349). It is concluded that emotional manipulation fully mediated the relationship b/w narcissism and interpersonal relationships.