Pay it forward or keep it for myself? How narcissism shapes daily prosocial motivation and behavior after receiving help

• Published in: Journal of vocational behavior 2022-06, Vol.135, p.103721, Article 103721
• Main Authors: Zhong, Meng, Gao, Ziyin, Song, Lynda Jiwen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Interpersonal deviance; Narcissism; Organizational citizenship behavior; Prosocial motivation; Received help
• ISSN: 0001-8791; 1095-9084
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jvb.2022.103721

The purpose of this research is to deepen the understanding of how employees react to others' help in a day-to-day context, with a focus on the role of narcissism in employees' prosocial motivation and behaviors. We hypothesize that received help generally enhances employees' prosocial motivation at the daily level, in turn increasing their own behaviors to help other coworkers and decreasing their interpersonal deviance. In addition, these effects hold only among employees who are low in narcissism. In other words, employees who are more narcissistic tend not to “pay it forward” when they receive help from their peers at work because received help fails to increase their prosocial motivation. Data from a two-week daily experience sampling study of 129 employees' 1047 daily reports confirmed the hypothesized model. Further, the results demonstrated that the effect was driven by the rivalry, but not the admiration, dimension of narcissism. Implications for the research of received help are presented. •Employees typically experience increased prosocial motivation when they receive help from their peers at the daily level.•Narcissism significantly attenuates this effect.•As a result, narcissists are less likely to respond to received help with increased help or decreased interpersonal deviance.•Implications for theory and practice are discussed.