Cornell Study: Public Praise and Flashy Titles Attract Narcissists

Cornell researchers surveyed more than 1,000 employees and found that public praise and prestigious titles are the rewards narcissists value most—and the more managers use them, the more likely they are to encourage and attract narcissists to their teams.

The study, published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, lands on a problem most leaders would rather not think about. Very few managers set out to hire spotlight-stealing egomaniacs. As Jessica Stillman, who reported the findings for Inc.com, put it: ask just about any manager if they want to attract narcissists and "they'll say no."

Yet one everyday management practice appears to do exactly that.

Which rewards do narcissists actually want?

The researchers asked a straightforward question: what is the best way to reward employees for a job well done? The standard menu includes:

• A raise or a bonus
• A promotion or title bump
• Heartfelt private praise in the manager's office
• Public recognition of accomplishments at a team or all-hands meeting

Business leaders use all of these tools to push people to work harder and perform better. The Cornell data shows the tools are not interchangeable—and one of them is the clear favorite of narcissists.

The survey covered both employees' narcissistic traits and how motivated they were by different professional rewards. Clear patterns emerged across the sample of more than 1,000 workers.

What did the survey find?

Some results were predictable. Just about everyone likes extra money, the study found. Glowing private praise also scored well across the board—narcissist or not, people respond to a sincere compliment behind a closed door.

The divergence showed up with the more visible rewards. When it came to public praise and flashy titles, employees higher in narcissism were the most enthusiastic. The audience, not the content of the recognition, appears to be the draw.

The sharpest finding concerned trade-offs. Asked to choose between a prestigious title and a raise, the more narcissistic respondents were more likely to pick the title. That inverts the standard assumption that cash is the universal incentive. For a identifiable slice of the workforce, status beats money.

The takeaway in plain words: money and private praise motivate broadly; public glory motivates the narcissistic disproportionately.

Why should managers care?

The mechanism the study describes cuts in two directions. Public recognition rewards the narcissists already on your team, feeding exactly the behavior colleagues find hardest to work with. It also functions as a recruiting signal, making your company more attractive to new narcissistic hires.

Stillman's framing is blunt. Unless you are a reality-TV producer looking to draw out the self-centered, you probably should not reward your people this way.

That is a provocative claim, and the research has limits worth noting. The study is based on self-reported surveys, not field experiments inside companies. It measures motivation and preference, not measured job performance or hiring outcomes. The published findings, as summarized, do not quantify how much public recognition actually shifts narcissist retention or recruitment in real organizations.

The takeaway: correlation between narcissism and preference for public reward is well documented in this data; the downstream business damage remains an inference.

What should leaders do differently?

The practical implication follows directly from the findings. Managers who want to motivate their teams without selecting for ego can shift the mix: lean on raises, bonuses and private praise, and use public spotlight moments and ornamental titles more sparingly.

That does not mean abolishing all-hands recognition. It means recognizing that every reward choice is also a filter, shaping who feels at home in the organization and who rises toward it.

The study's quiet warning for talent strategy is that incentive design doubles as culture design—whether managers intend it or not.