The present research examined whether the associations that narcissistic personality features had with exercise addiction were mediated by particular motives for engaging in exercise in a large Israeli community sample (N = 2629). The results revealed that each aspect of narcissism was positively associated with exercise addiction. Narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry had similar positive indirect associations with exercise addiction through the interpersonal motive for exercise. However, these aspects of narcissism diverged in their indirect associations with exercise addiction through psychological motives, body-related motives, and fitness motives for exercise such that these indirect associations were positive for narcissistic admiration but negative for narcissistic rivalry. Narcissistic vulnerability had positive indirect associations with exercise addiction through body-related motives and fitness motives that were similar to those observed for narcissistic admiration. These results suggest that exercise-related motives may play important roles in the associations that narcissistic personality features have with exercise addiction. The discussion will focus on the implications of these results for understanding the complex connections between narcissism and exercise addiction.
Keywords: addiction; exercise; motivation; narcissism.