Campbell, W., Foster, C., & Finkel, E. (2002) | References

What This Research Found

W. Keith Campbell, Craig A. Foster, and Eli J. Finkel's 2002 study "Does Self-Love Lead to Love for Others?" represents a foundational investigation into how narcissistic personality traits shape romantic relationships. Through five carefully designed studies with over 600 participants, the researchers established that narcissism is associated with a fundamentally different approach to love: one characterised by game-playing, power-seeking, and chronic alternatives-scanning rather than genuine intimacy and commitment.

The central finding: narcissists approach love as a game. Across all five studies, using multiple measures and methods, narcissism was consistently and strongly associated with a game-playing love style (ludus). This is not playfulness or spontaneity but a strategic approach to romance: keeping partners uncertain, maintaining emotional distance, creating jealousy, and treating the relationship as an arena for winning rather than a space for mutual growth. Where healthy love involves vulnerability and interdependence, game-playing love involves manipulation and self-protection. The narcissist plays to win, and winning means maintaining power while minimising genuine emotional investment.

Power and autonomy drive the pattern. Study 2 examined why narcissists adopt game-playing love styles, testing whether this reflects general relationship dysfunction or specific underlying motivations. The findings were clear: narcissists' game-playing was mediated by their need for power and autonomy in relationships. They are not simply "bad at relationships" but specifically oriented toward maintaining control and avoiding the vulnerability that genuine attachment requires. This power orientation explains many puzzling behaviours survivors describe: the withholding of affection as punishment, the strategic use of praise and criticism, the resistance to any arrangement that creates genuine dependence, and the rage when partners assert independence.

Narcissists perceive more alternatives and show less commitment. Study 3 applied Rusbult's Investment Model to examine how narcissism affects commitment processes. The results revealed that narcissists perceive themselves as having more and better relationship alternatives than non-narcissists. This perception, whether or not it reflects reality, has profound consequences: believing you have options reduces commitment to any particular partner. Narcissists showed significantly lower commitment to their romantic partners, and this was statistically explained by their greater perception of alternatives. While you were planning a future together, they were mentally cataloguing other possibilities.

Partners confirmed the narcissists' self-reports. Studies 4 and 5 added crucial validation: the narcissists' self-reported game-playing was independently confirmed by their partners. This is methodologically important because it rules out the possibility that narcissists merely perceive themselves as game-players without actually behaving that way. Partners of narcissists, without knowing their partner's narcissism scores, described relationships consistent with game-playing love: ambiguity, power plays, emotional unpredictability, and lack of genuine closeness. The pain survivors report is not misinterpretation but accurate perception of narcissistic relationship behaviour.

Self-esteem and narcissism have opposite relationship patterns. A crucial finding distinguishes healthy self-regard from pathological narcissism. While narcissism was associated with game-playing love, self-esteem was associated with healthier relationship patterns: less manic (obsessive, anxious) love and more passionate (intimate, committed) love. This demonstrates that feeling good about yourself does not inherently lead to poor relationships. Healthy self-worth facilitates genuine love; narcissistic grandiosity impairs it. The narcissist's apparent confidence is not the same as the secure self-regard that supports intimate connection.

How This Research Is Used in the Book

Campbell's research appears in Narcissus and the Child as part of the analysis of how narcissistic traits can paradoxically facilitate early career success while ultimately undermining sustainable achievement and relationships. In Chapter 17: The Hollowed Self, the book examines the narcissist's professional trajectory:

"The same traits that corrupt organisations (see Chapter on corporate narcissism) can build careers, at least initially. Grandiosity manifests as confidence; charm facilitates networking; empathy deficits enable ruthless decisions; supply-seeking translates to ambition. The narcissist interviews well, pursues opportunities aggressively, takes credit readily. Sales, entertainment, politics, law, entrepreneurship---many fields reward these traits, for a time."

This citation connects to Campbell's broader research programme showing how narcissistic strategies can be superficially adaptive in competitive contexts. The game-playing approach that undermines intimate relationships may provide short-term advantages in professional settings where appearing confident and maintaining options are rewarded. However, the same chapter traces how these patterns eventually create professional implosions through accumulated interpersonal damage, ethical violations, and inability to sustain collaborative relationships.

The research on self-esteem maintenance and game-playing love style also informs the book's analysis of why narcissistic relationships follow predictable patterns: the intense pursuit (idealization) when the narcissist is acquiring new narcissistic supply, followed by strategic distancing and devaluation once the partner is secured. Campbell's findings on power and autonomy needs explain why narcissists resist genuine intimacy even in relationships they actively pursued: closeness threatens the self-regulation strategies that maintain their grandiose self-image.

Why This Matters for Survivors

If you experienced a relationship with a narcissist, Campbell's research speaks directly to the confusion, self-doubt, and pain you carry.

The game was real, and you were not told the rules. Campbell's finding that narcissists adopt game-playing love styles explains why your relationship felt like a constant guessing game. The uncertainty, the hot-and-cold dynamics, the sense that you were always somehow failing without understanding how---these were not failures of your perception or relationship skills. They were the predictable experience of being in a relationship with someone who was playing games while you were trying to build genuine connection. This created profound cognitive dissonance: your experience of the relationship contradicted their narrative about it. The rules kept changing because the narcissist's only consistent rule was maintaining their advantage.

Your value was always being measured against alternatives. The research documents that narcissists perceive more relationship alternatives and actively attend to them. This explains the painful sense that you were always being compared, that your worth was contingent and conditional. It was not your imagination that they seemed to have one foot out the door, that they responded to attention from others with pleasure that felt threatening, that their commitment seemed to depend on whether something better was available. Campbell's research confirms this was happening: narcissists maintain awareness of alternatives as a self-regulation strategy, protecting their self-esteem by believing they could do better.

The lack of commitment was about them, not you. You may have believed that if you were better, more beautiful, more successful, more understanding, they would have committed fully. Campbell's research suggests otherwise: narcissists show reduced commitment across relationships, mediated by their alternatives-seeking and power needs rather than partner characteristics. Your narcissist's lack of commitment reflected their personality structure, not your inadequacy. Another partner would have experienced the same pattern, perhaps with different surface details but the same underlying dynamic of game-playing and commitment avoidance.

Their partners saw it too. Studies 4 and 5's finding that partners independently confirmed narcissistic game-playing validates your experience. You were not oversensitive, not imagining things, not creating problems where none existed. Partners of narcissists---without knowing about narcissism research or their partner's test scores---described relationships marked by the same dynamics you experienced. The gaslighting that made you doubt your perceptions was contradicted by objective research: partners of narcissists accurately perceive their narcissistic partners' relationship behaviour.

Understanding the mechanism can support healing. Knowing that narcissistic game-playing reflects power and autonomy needs, not reactions to your behaviour, can help release inappropriate self-blame. You were not playing the same game they were. Your goal was genuine connection; theirs was self-enhancement. This mismatch was not your fault, nor was it something you could have fixed by loving better, giving more, or becoming more perfect. The research suggests the pattern reflects deep-seated personality characteristics that existed before you met and will continue after you leave.

Clinical Implications

For psychiatrists, psychologists, and trauma-informed clinicians, Campbell's research provides empirically grounded understanding of what survivors of narcissistic relationships have experienced and how to support their recovery.

Validate the survivor's reality with research evidence. Many survivors arrive in therapy doubting their own perceptions, having been gaslit into believing they caused the relationship dysfunction. Campbell's multi-study demonstration that narcissists self-report game-playing, and that their partners independently confirm it, provides scientific validation. Clinicians can explain that the patterns the survivor describes are documented, predictable, and not unique to their situation. This validation can be profoundly therapeutic for patients whose reality was systematically denied.

Address the specific trauma of game-playing love. Survivors of narcissistic relationships have experienced a particular form of relational trauma: being played rather than loved. This creates distinct clinical presentations. The constant uncertainty of game-playing produces hypervigilance and difficulty trusting in subsequent relationships. The power dynamics create templates of submission or control that may repeat. The intermittent reinforcement of narcissistic affection produces trauma bonds that function like addiction. Treatment should address these specific injuries rather than applying generic relationship therapy approaches.

Distinguish narcissistic dynamics from normal relationship conflict. Not every difficult relationship involves narcissism, and clinicians should avoid pathologising ordinary relationship struggles. Campbell's research helps distinguish: narcissistic relating involves systematic game-playing driven by power and autonomy needs, chronic alternatives-seeking, and reduced commitment as patterns rather than occasional behaviours. This may constitute a form of coercive control when the power dynamics become entrenched. Normal relationship conflict occurs within a context of genuine commitment and mutual care; narcissistic relating reflects fundamentally different relationship orientation.

Consider the implications for co-parenting and ongoing contact. For survivors who share children with narcissists or must maintain contact for other reasons, Campbell's findings on power-seeking and game-playing remain relevant. The narcissist's relationship orientation does not change when the romantic relationship ends. They will likely continue to seek power and play games in co-parenting contexts. Clinicians should help survivors develop strategies for managing ongoing contact that protect their wellbeing while meeting necessary obligations, recognising that the narcissist's fundamental approach to relating will persist.

Support development of healthy relationship templates. Survivors of narcissistic relationships often have distorted templates for what love should feel like. The intensity of love bombing becomes the baseline for "real" love; ordinary healthy relationships seem flat by comparison. Campbell's distinction between narcissism and self-esteem in relationship patterns provides a teaching tool: healthy self-regard produces passionate, committed love, not game-playing. Therapy can help survivors recognise that the intensity they experienced was not love but strategic pursuit, and that genuine love may feel calmer and more stable.

Broader Implications

Campbell's research on narcissistic game-playing extends beyond individual relationships to illuminate patterns across social contexts where narcissistic relating causes harm.

The Narcissistic Self-Regulation System

Campbell's 2002 findings contributed to his subsequent development of the Narcissistic Self-Regulation Model, which explains how narcissists maintain their inflated self-views through strategic interpersonal behaviours. Game-playing in relationships serves self-enhancement: by treating romance as a competition they can win, narcissists protect their grandiose self-image. By perceiving abundant alternatives, they reinforce the belief that they are highly desirable. By maintaining power over partners, they confirm their superiority. Understanding narcissism as a self-regulation system helps explain why narcissists persist in behaviours that damage relationships: from their perspective, the behaviours succeed at their actual purpose, which is not relationship success but self-esteem maintenance. When these strategies fail to produce adequate supply, narcissistic collapse may result.

Implications for Attachment and Bonding

The research illuminates why attachment patterns become so distorted in narcissistic relationships. The narcissist's power and autonomy needs fundamentally conflict with the interdependence that secure attachment requires. They may create an appearance of attachment, particularly during acquisition phases when they are securing supply, but genuine attachment threatens their self-regulatory system. This helps explain the devastating abandonment survivors experience when narcissists devalue or discard: the bond they felt was asymmetrical. The survivor was genuinely attached; the narcissist was strategically engaged.

Understanding Love Bombing Through Game-Playing

Campbell's findings provide theoretical grounding for understanding love bombing as a narcissistic strategy rather than genuine intense love. The game-playing orientation suggests that the intense pursuit phase serves strategic purposes: establishing power by positioning themselves as the pursuer, securing commitment from the target while maintaining their own options, and creating an emotional debt that can be collected later. The subsequent withdrawal that survivors experience is not loss of love but shift in game strategy: once the partner is secured, new challenges (such as maintaining interest while seeking alternatives) become salient.

The Corporate and Professional Context

The research's finding that narcissistic traits can facilitate career success while undermining relationships has significant organisational implications. Narcissistic individuals may excel at competitive contexts that reward self-promotion, confidence, and strategic behaviour. Their game-playing orientation may serve them well in negotiations, sales, or political contexts. However, the same traits create toxic work environments through power-seeking, failure to commit to team goals, and treatment of colleagues as means rather than ends. Organisations might consider how their selection and reward systems inadvertently select for narcissistic traits that produce short-term gains but long-term dysfunction.

Social Media and Dating Applications

Campbell's findings take on new significance in the era of dating apps and social media. These platforms structurally encourage the alternatives-seeking and game-playing that narcissism predicts, while creating new forms of narcissistic supply through likes, matches, and followers. Infinite scrolling through potential partners literalises the narcissist's perception of abundant alternatives. The gamified elements of swiping and matching frame romance as competition. For narcissistic individuals, these platforms may amplify already-present tendencies. For their targets, the platforms remove contextual information that might reveal narcissistic patterns earlier. Campbell's subsequent research has examined how technology shapes narcissistic expression, suggesting that contemporary platforms may be particularly hospitable to narcissistic relating.

Cultural and Gender Considerations

The game-playing patterns Campbell documented may manifest differently across cultural contexts and gender expressions. Cultures that emphasise male dominance may normalise game-playing behaviours in men that would be recognised as problematic in women. Cultures that emphasise female indirect communication may provide cover for female narcissistic game-playing. The underlying dynamic of power-seeking and commitment avoidance likely transcends culture, but its expression varies. Clinicians and researchers should attend to how game-playing narcissism manifests in specific cultural and gendered contexts rather than expecting uniform presentation.

Limitations and Considerations

Responsible engagement with Campbell's research requires acknowledging several important limitations.

Sample characteristics limit generalisability. The studies primarily used American college students and community samples. Whether findings generalise to clinical populations with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, to older adults, or to non-Western cultures remains uncertain. College students in dating relationships may show different patterns than adults in long-term partnerships or marriages. The relationship between subclinical narcissism measured by the NPI and clinical NPD is complex, and findings may not directly translate.

Self-report measures have inherent limitations. While the partner confirmation studies address some concerns, most data came from self-report. Narcissists' self-presentation tendencies may affect responses even on anonymous questionnaires. The relationship between self-reported attitudes and actual behaviour is imperfect. Observational studies of narcissists' actual relationship behaviour would complement these self-report findings.

Correlation does not establish causation. While the research shows associations between narcissism and game-playing love, and suggests that power/autonomy needs mediate this relationship, the cross-sectional designs cannot establish causal direction. It remains possible that relationship experiences shape narcissistic tendencies rather than only the reverse. Longitudinal research tracking individuals before, during, and after relationships would help establish causal pathways.

The role of partner characteristics. The research focuses on how narcissists approach relationships but says less about how partner characteristics interact with narcissistic patterns. Do some partner traits moderate narcissistic game-playing? Do narcissists differentially target certain individuals? Do partners who stay with narcissists differ from those who leave early? These questions remain incompletely addressed in this research programme.

Measurement of love styles. The research relies on established love style measures, but these instruments may not fully capture the complexity of narcissistic romantic relating. The game-playing construct overlaps with but does not completely map onto what survivors describe. Qualitative research might reveal additional dimensions of narcissistic relating not captured by quantitative measures.

Historical Context

When Campbell, Foster, and Finkel published this research in 2002, narcissism was primarily understood through clinical literature focused on pathological cases. The Narcissistic Personality Inventory, developed in 1979, had enabled measurement of subclinical narcissism in normal populations, but relatively little empirical research had examined how narcissism shaped everyday relationships. The prevailing assumption was that narcissism was about self-regard with little attention to its interpersonal consequences.

This paper helped establish what would become a major research programme on narcissism and close relationships. Campbell and colleagues demonstrated that narcissism is not merely about excessive self-love but fundamentally shapes how individuals relate to intimate partners. The finding that narcissists adopt game-playing love styles, driven by power and autonomy needs, reframed narcissism as an interpersonal phenomenon with real consequences for real people.

The paper appeared just as cultural attention to narcissism was beginning to increase. The subsequent decade would see growing interest in narcissistic trends in society, the impact of technology on narcissistic expression, and public awareness of narcissistic abuse. Campbell would become a leading figure in this emerging field, with this 2002 paper establishing foundational empirical findings that continue to inform research and clinical practice.

The research also connected to broader developments in relationship science. Rusbult's Investment Model, which Campbell applied to understanding narcissistic commitment deficits, was gaining influence as a framework for understanding relationship stability. By showing how narcissistic personality traits affect investment model processes, the research integrated personality psychology with relationship science.

Twenty years later, the findings have been replicated and extended across cultures, relationship types, and age groups. The core insight that narcissism is associated with game-playing love, power-seeking, alternatives-scanning, and reduced commitment has become foundational knowledge in understanding narcissistic relationships. Campbell's subsequent work on the Narcissism Epidemic, social media narcissism, and the New Science of Narcissism built on this empirical foundation.

Does self-love lead to love for others? A story of narcissistic game playing

APA Citation