Vulnerable narcissism is related to fear of being laughed at and to joy of laughing at others

Vulnerable narcissism is associated to the fear of criticism and rejection; however, to date no investigation assessed its relations to the dispositions towards ridicule and laughter, which is scrutinized in the current paper. The dispositions towards ridicule and laughter could be conceptualized as three distinct types of humor personalities: gelotophobia (fear of being laughed at), gelotophilia (the joy of being laughed at), and katagelasticism (joy of laughing at others). We expected that according to the complex structure of vulnerable narcissism, it would be positively related to gelotophobia and katagelasticsism, reflecting neurotic withdrawal on the one hand, and antagonistic orientation towards people on the other. The results supported our hypotheses, providing further evidence to the complex structure of vulnerable narcissism.