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ABSTRACT Although social anxiety (SA) is typically conceptualized as an internalizing vulnerability, a subset of socially anxious individuals display heightened aggression. The present study examined whether vulnerable narcissism—particularly narcissistic self‐centeredness—helps explain heterogeneity in the SA–aggression association. Chinese university students ( N = 872) completed measures of SA (Social Interaction Anxiety Scale; Social Phobia Scale), vulnerable narcissism (Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale; self‐centeredness and rejection sensitivity), and proactive/reactive aggression (Reactive–Proactive Aggression Questionnaire). Latent profile analysis using the two SA indicators and the two vulnerable‐narcissism facets identified seven profiles. A high‐SA/high‐vulnerable‐narcissism profile (“Vulnerable‐Defensive”; 9.9% of the sample) reported aggression levels in the highest tier across all three aggression indices, together with a Moderate‐SA/Moderate‐VN profile (Class 5; 23.9%) and a High‐SA/Low‐VN profile (Class 6; 6.3%). Planned contrasts showed that, despite both profiles occupying the highest SA tier, the Vulnerable‐Defensive profile—which additionally scored substantially higher on self‐centeredness—reported higher reactive aggression ( d = 0.32) and total aggression ( d = 0.34) than a high‐SA/low‐vulnerable‐narcissism profile. Complementary moderated regressions indicated that self‐centeredness modestly strengthened the association between SA and proactive aggression (interaction B = 0.095, p = 0.032; f 2 = 0.005) but not reactive aggression. These results suggest that SA is not uniformly associated with aggression; narcissistic self‐centeredness helps differentiate high‐SA individuals who are at heightened risk for aggressive responding.
Tuerxun et al. (Fri,) studied this question.