Junior High School Students’ Attitudes Toward Help Seeking After Being Reprimanded :

Differences Between Students High and Low in Narcissism

Abstract

  In the present study, answers on questionnaires completed by 397 junior high school students (207 boys, 190 girls) were examined, in order to study the relation between the students’ inferences about a reprimander’s motive and their attitudes toward help seeking.  Differences in that relationship were also examined with respect to the students’ reported level of narcissism.  The results suggested that the reprimander’s inferred prosocial motive positively influenced the students’ cognition of optimum helping.  In contrast, an inferred self-centered motive negatively influenced the students’ cognition of optimum helping, whereas it had a positive influence on the students’ cognition of stigma.  Moreover, the results from the students who scored high on narcissism showed weaker effects of the inferred prosocial motive and a stronger effect of the inferred self-centered motive.