Honors Program
University Honors
Date of Award
5-2025
Thesis Professor(s)
Dr. Ginni Blackhart
Thesis Professor Department
<--College of Arts and Sciences-->
Thesis Reader(s)
Dr. Ginni Blackhart and Dr. Williams
Abstract
Due to the difficulty of meeting potential dating partners in the modern age, many people have resorted to using dating apps to meet potential romantic partners. The ubiquity of dating app use in the U.S. led Bisio and Blackhart (2025) to examine how dating app users perceive potential romantic partners as opposed to those engaging in more traditional dating behaviors. They found that individuals higher in narcissism were significantly more likely to dehumanize potential romantic partners than those lower in narcissism, regardless of whether they used dating apps or not. The purpose of the present study was to explore this finding further, examining whether specific aspects of narcissism, as well as different aspects of the dark tetrad of personality, predicted dehumanization of potential romantic partners. The results indicated that individuals that scored higher in Contingent Self-Esteem and Self-Sacrificing Self-Enhancement, from the Pathological Narcissism Inventory, as well as those who scored higher in the sadism dimension of personality, were more likely to dehumanize potential dating partners.
Publisher
East Tennessee State University
Document Type
Honors Thesis - Withheld
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Beecher, Grace A.; Blackhart, Dr. Ginette C.; and Bisio, Isabelle, "Narcissistic Personality Traits and the Perception of Potential Romantic Relationship Partners" (2025). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 855. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/855
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.
