Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the mediating effects of rejection sensitivity in pathological narcissism and dating violence, and to verify whether there is a gender difference in each variable, further examining the gender difference in the mediating pathways. The participants of this study were 381 men and women in 20s living across the country, and online self-report surveys was conducted regarding their experiences of pathological narcissism, rejection sensitivity, and four types of dating violence. As a result of verifying gender differences, it was found that women had a higher vulnerability to narcissism, rejection sensitivity and committed more psychological violence, sexual violence, and controlling behavior than men. As a result of the mediation analysis, it was found that rejection sensitivity partial mediated the effect of pathological narcissism on psychological violence and control behavior, but it showed a complete mediation effect on sexual violence. And there was no mediating effect of rejection sensitivity between pathological narcissism and physical violence. As a result of measuring the moderating effect of gender in this mediating pathways, the moderated mediating effect of gender was verified in the effect of naricissistic grandiosity and narcissistic vulnerability on control behavior through rejection sensitivity. These results show that pathological narcissism promotes psychological and sexual violence in both men and women, and rejection sensitivity acts as a mediator in this process. In addition, the effect of pathological narcissism on the control behaviors through rejection sensitivity was significantly higher in women than in men, indicating that there are gender differences in the mediated pathways. Finally, the implications and limitations of this study and suggestions for follow-up studies were discussed.