Journal of Business Venturing 33 (2018) 780–812

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Business Venturing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusvent

Narcissistic rhetoric and crowdfunding performance: A social role

T
theory perspective
⁎
Aaron H. Anglina, Marcus T. Wolfeb, Jeremy C. Shortc, , Aaron F. McKennyd,
Robert J. Pidduckb
a
Department of Management, Entrepreneurship, and Leadership, Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University, 2900 Lubbock Avenue, Fort
Worth, TX 76109, United States
b
Division of Entrepreneurship & Economic Development, Price College of Business, University of Oklahoma, 307 W. Brooks - Rm. 206, Norman, OK
73019-0450, United States
c
Division of Management & International Business, Price College of Business, University of Oklahoma, 307 W. Brooks - Rm. 206, Norman, OK 73019-
0450, United States
d
Department of Management, College of Business Administration, University of Central Florida, 12744 Pegasus Drive, Orlando, FL 32816, United
States

A R T IC LE I N F O ABS TRA CT

Keywords: Drawing from clinical and organizational narcissism research, we develop a novel measure of
Narcissism narcissistic rhetoric, investigating its prevalence in a sample of 1863 crowdfunding campaigns.
Crowdfunding An experiment using 1800 observations further validates our measure and confirms our hy-
Social role theory pothesized inverted-U relationship between narcissistic rhetoric and crowdfunding performance.
Content analysis
Leveraging social role theory, we explore sex, sexual orientation, and race as potential mod-
erators of this relationship. Moderation tests reveal LGBTQ entrepreneurs generally yield greater
performance when using narcissistic rhetoric than heterosexuals while racial minorities under-
perform Caucasians using narcissistic rhetoric. Our findings suggest successful crowdfunding
campaigns must balance narcissistic rhetoric with entrepreneurs' perceived social roles.

1. Executive summary

Narcissism is defined as an exaggerated — albeit fragile — sense of one's self-importance or influence, characterized by a per-
sistent preoccupation with success, a need for authority, competitiveness, and pervasive patterns of grandiose thinking (Chatterjee
and Hambrick, 2007; Wales et al., 2013). Although entrepreneurship scholars have called for more investigation into the role of
narcissism in new venture processes, a dearth of work currently exists (e.g., Miller, 2015; Navis and Ozbek, 2016). We begin to
answer these calls by exploring how use of narcissistic rhetoric impacts the fundraising process in crowdfunding. Specifically, we seek
to answer two research questions: 1) To what extent, if any, does the use of narcissistic rhetoric — language reflective of narcissistic
characteristics — influence the ability to raise funds via crowdfunding? 2) How does one's sex, sexual orientation, and race alter the influence
of narcissistic rhetoric on crowdfunding performance?
We draw from social role theory to address these research questions. Social role theory suggests that individuals are cast into
certain ‘roles’ (e.g., gender roles or career roles) that are associated with specific expectations, stereotypes, and permitted forms of
behavior (Biddle, 1986; Eagly and Wood, 2011). We contend that use of moderate amounts of narcissistic rhetoric is expected in the

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (A.H. Anglin), [email protected] (M.T. Wolfe), [email protected] (J.C. Short), [email protected] (A.F. McKenny),
[email protected] (R.J. Pidduck).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2018.04.004
Received 26 July 2017; Received in revised form 6 April 2018; Accepted 11 April 2018
Available online 25 April 2018
0883-9026/ © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
A.H. Anglin et al. Journal of Business Venturing 33 (2018) 780–812

role of a successful entrepreneur given that it conveys characteristics such as confidence and strength (e.g., Grijalva and Harms,
2014). However, high levels of narcissistic rhetoric convey characteristics such as instability and untrustworthiness, which are
inconsistent with successful entrepreneurs. Therefore, use of narcissistic rhetoric should have a curvilinear, inverted-U relationship
with crowdfunding performance. Social role theory also argues that individual characteristics, such as narcissism, are viewed dif-
ferently depending on how one conforms (or not) to prevailing stereotypes of social groups (e.g., Gupta et al., 2009; Rosette et al.,
2008). Failure to conform may carry ‘social sanctions’ against an individual. Assignment to a social group is often based on de-
mographic or surface-level characteristics (e.g., sex or race) (Levine et al., 1993). Accordingly, we build from social role theory to
examine how the relationship between narcissistic rhetoric and crowdfunding performance may vary when considering an en-
trepreneur's sex, sexual orientation, and race.
We investigate our research questions by examining 1863 crowdfunding campaigns from Kickstarter. To do so, we develop and
validate a novel measure of narcissistic rhetoric using content analysis drawing from the seven dimensions of the narcissistic per-
sonality inventory (NPI; Raskin and Terry, 1988). Our results indicate an inverted-U relationship between narcissistic rhetoric and
crowdfunding performance. LGBTQ entrepreneurs generally outperform heterosexual entrepreneurs when using narcissistic rhetoric
and racial minority entrepreneurs underperform Caucasian entrepreneurs when using narcissistic rhetoric. Next, we seek to replicate
these results in an experimental setting using 1800 observations. The results of our experiment further validate our measure and
confirm an inverted-U relationship between narcissistic rhetoric and crowdfunding performance. We then create a narcissism index,
incorporating other potential indicators of narcissism in crowdfunding campaigns. The results using the index are generally con-
sistent with our original findings. Finally, we explore combinations of moderators (e.g., racial minority and female) on the narcissistic
rhetoric-performance relationship, demonstrating that multiple entrepreneur characteristics simultaneously shape the influence of
narcissistic rhetoric on crowdfunding performance.
We offer three key contributions. First, scholars have given limited attention to the conditions under which narcissism may be
beneficial or detrimental to important entrepreneurial outcomes (Navis and Ozbek, 2016). We take a valuable step forward by
illustrating how narcissistic rhetoric shapes funding performance in crowdfunding. Second, we integrate insights from social role
theory and narcissism to show how use of narcissistic rhetoric can be more or less beneficial depending on how use of such rhetoric
complies with stereotypes reflecting social norms. Third, we develop a novel measure of narcissistic rhetoric using content analysis
rooted in the narcissistic personality inventory (NPI: Raskin and Terry, 1988) – the standard in psychological self-assessment re-
search. In sum, our study provides the first investigation into the role of narcissistic rhetoric in raising critical funding for new
ventures, while also exploring how demographic factors further shape this relationship and leveraging a novel, comprehensive
measure of narcissistic rhetoric.

2. Introduction

The concept of narcissism dates to the mythical Greek hunter Narcissus, who became so enamored with his own reflection that he
was unable to leave his beauty, ultimately abandoning his will to live. Narcissism today is broadly defined as an exaggerated — albeit
fragile — sense of one's self-importance or influence that is characterized by a persistent preoccupation with success, a need for
authority, competitiveness, and pervasive patterns of grandiose thinking (Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2007; Wales et al., 2013). In-
vestigations into narcissism have shown that increased narcissism leads to more volatile financial performance (Chatterjee and
Hambrick, 2007), a greater likelihood of pursuing of novel innovations (Navis and Ozbek, 2016), and increased entrepreneurial
intentions (Hmieleski and Lerner, 2016).
Although scholars have called for more investigation into the role of narcissism in new venture development (e.g., Miller, 2015;
Navis and Ozbek, 2016), scholarly inquiry has yet to examine the role of narcissism in the critical process of obtaining new venture
funding. This is a significant omission because exhibiting narcissistic characteristics, qualities or behaviors associated with narcissism
(e.g., high self-confidence or boastfulness; Wink, 1991), can have a profound impact on how one party is perceived by another (Back
et al., 2010; Malkin et al., 2013). Coupled with the knowledge that investors often base their investment decision, in part, on their
subjective positive or negative perceptions of an entrepreneur (Davis et al., 2017; Parhankangas and Ehrlich, 2014), an entrepreneur's
display of narcissistic characteristics may be an important factor in shaping investor perceptions, ultimately impacting whether or not
funding is obtained.
Narcissism among entrepreneurs is particularly intriguing because it presents a theoretical conundrum regarding whether nar-
cissistic characteristics are viewed positively or negatively by others (Campbell and Campbell, 2009). Individuals exhibiting nar-
cissistic characteristics may be viewed as charismatic, strong, creative, and likable – particularly in short-term, low acquaintance
interactions (Galvin et al., 2010; Rosenthal and Pittinsky, 2006). However, at extreme levels these individuals may be viewed as
arrogant, off-putting, unstable, or less competent (e.g., Judge et al., 2006). As such, our first research question asks: To what extent, if
any, does the use of narcissistic rhetoric — language reflective of narcissistic characteristics — influence the ability to raise funds via
crowdfunding?
To answer this question, we draw from social role theory, which suggests that individuals are cast into certain ‘roles’ (e.g., cultural
roles, gender roles, or career roles) that carry specific expectations, stereotypes, and permitted forms of behavior (Biddle, 1986; Eagly
and Wood, 2011; Koenig and Eagly, 2014). We contend that use of some narcissistic rhetoric is expected and consistent with the role
of a successful entrepreneur and conveys qualities associated with successful entrepreneurs, such as confidence, assertiveness, and
strength (e.g., Grijalva and Harms, 2014). This is particularly true in fundraising situations where entrepreneurs are expected to self-
promote in order to convince others of their worth. However, a high level of narcissistic rhetoric may convey instability and un-
trustworthiness – characteristics inconsistent with the role of a successful entrepreneur. Thus, use of narcissistic rhetoric should have

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A.H. Anglin et al. Journal of Business Venturing 33 (2018) 780–812

a curvilinear, inverted-U relationship with crowdfunding performance.

Social role theory argues that individual characteristics are often viewed differently depending on how one conforms (or not) to
prevailing stereotypes (e.g., Gupta et al., 2009; Rosette et al., 2008). For example, females are often expected to act in a more selfless
and collectively-oriented manner than males; consequently, females that deviate from this perceived norm may be punished for self-
promotion (Wood and Eagly, 2012). Accordingly, we continue to build from social role theory to examine the moderating role of sex,
sexual orientation, and race on the relationship between narcissistic rhetoric and crowdfunding performance. Consequently, our
second research question asks: How does one's sex, sexual orientation, and race alter the influence of narcissistic rhetoric on crowdfunding
performance?
Our investigation provides three key contributions. First, while scholars have begun to note the potential role of narcissism in new
venture processes (e.g., Miller, 2015), they have paid scant attention to the conditions under which narcissism may be beneficial or
detrimental to important entrepreneurial outcomes (Navis and Ozbek, 2016). We take a valuable step in creating needed under-
standing by being the first to demonstrate how narcissistic rhetoric shapes funding performance in crowdfunding. More specifically,
we leverage 1863 crowdfunding campaigns coupled with an additional experiment of 1800 observations to illustrate how the impact
of narcissistic rhetoric may be positive or negative depending upon its prevalence within a crowdfunding campaign. Research
spanning from psychology to strategic management indicates that the influence of narcissism is highly situational (e.g., Galvin et al.,
2010; Wales et al., 2013). Consequently, for our second contribution we integrate insights from social role theory with research in
narcissism to present boundary conditions to our primary finding. In doing so, we provide evidence that, in some cases, how in-
dividuals who exhibit narcissistic characteristics are viewed by others is contingent on how consistently their use of narcissistic
rhetoric complies with stereotypes reflecting social norms. Third, as an empirical contribution, we develop a novel measure of
narcissistic rhetoric using content analysis. While previous studies have leveraged valuable data sources associated with projections
of narcissism in large corporations (e.g., Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2007), our work develops a more comprehensive approach to
exploring the seven components of narcissism drawn from the narcissistic personality inventory (NPI; Raskin and Terry, 1988) – the
standard in psychological self-assessment research. Past studies using unobtrusive measures to capture narcissism have employed
measures that relate to a select number of dimensions of the NPI (such as the prominence of a CEO's photograph and use of first-
person pronouns in annual reports to mirror the authority and vanity dimensions respectively), but scholars have yet to adopt an
unobtrusive approach that seeks to measure all seven dimensions originally argued to capture narcissistic behavior by the NPI (e.g.,
Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2011; Iivonen and Moisander, 2015). In sum, our study provides the first investigation into the role of
narcissistic rhetoric in crowdfunding while also exploring how demographic factors further shape this relationship.

3. Social role theory, narcissism, and crowdfunding

A ‘role’ is defined as a set of behavioral expectations attached to an individual's position relative to a particular social setting or
social group (Sluss et al., 2010). Social role theory, then, seeks to identify and explain the roles where individuals are cast (e.g.,
cultural roles, gender roles, or career roles) and explicate the specific expectations, stereotypes, and allowed forms of behavior that
accompany these roles (Biddle, 1986; Eagly and Wood, 2011). Behaviors assigned within these roles influence the characteristics that
others assume are representative of a social group, sometimes resulting in broad stereotypes. Assignment to a social group is often
based on surface-level characteristics, such as age, race, sex, or occupation; therefore individuals within those groups may or may not
possess the assumed characteristics or fit the assigned stereotypes of that group (Levine et al., 1993). For instance, there is a
meaningful distinction between an individual's sex and gender (Suar and Gochhayat, 2016; Unger, 1979). An individual's sex (e.g.,
female) is reflected in their physiological, surface-level differences. Gender (e.g., feminine) is comprised of the socially constructed
characteristics that a society deems appropriate for individuals of the associated sex (Unger, 1979). Therefore, while Western society
may expect females to be sensitive, African-Americans athletic, and gay males fashionable, such stereotypes may not hold for a given
individual (Koenig and Eagly, 2014).
Departure from expected norms of behavior may carry social sanctions against an individual (Brooks and Good, 2001). For
example, males are often expected to be masculine, conveying assertiveness and strength (Vogel et al., 2003). Failure to conform to
this stereotype may lead some to question their leadership abilities in organizational settings (e.g., Johnson et al., 2008). Further,
individuals operating in multiple roles (e.g., a female who acts as an entrepreneur) may experience role conflict, where expectations
concerning how to behave based on societal norms and expectations are unclear (Powell and Greenhaus, 2010).
When raising funds for a new venture, individuals adopt the role of an entrepreneur. Popular perceptions of entrepreneurs often
depict successful entrepreneurs as self-reliant, confident, charismatic, aggressive, risk taking, creative, or narcissistic (e.g., Branson,
2010; Gupta et al., 2014; Henderson and Robertson, 2000; Verheul et al., 2005). These perceptions persist even though evidence
suggests that the view of the lone wolf, prodigal entrepreneur who is driven to success by his or her own individual creativity and
charisma is more fiction than fact (Ensley et al., 2006; Reid et al., 2017). Given the prevalence and persistence of such perceptions, it
is likely that individuals evaluating entrepreneurs look for qualities that are consistent with these perceptions (i.e., someone who
portrays confidence, self-reliance, etc.). This may be particularly true when the evaluators are inexperienced in judging the qualities
that make a successful entrepreneur, such as crowdfunding investors. As such, crowdfunding investors may be influenced by en-
trepreneur characteristics that are reflective of the role of a successful entrepreneur. Given that narcissism embodies characteristics
like confidence, self-reliance, aggressiveness, and creativity (e.g., Grijalva and Harms, 2014), it is possible that those displaying
aspects of narcissism communicate qualities associated with the role of a successful entrepreneur. Accordingly, we turn to displays of
narcissistic characteristics, specifically narcissistic rhetoric, as a potential driver of crowdfunding performance.

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3.1. Narcissistic rhetoric and crowdfunding

Narcissism has long been a topic of interest for management scholars (Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2007) and has seen a recent surge
in attention with regards to entrepreneurial contexts (Hmieleski and Lerner, 2016; Paulhus and Williams, 2002). According to the
American Psychiatric Association, narcissism is defined as a persistent pattern of self-aggrandizement, self-importance, and self-focus
(APA, 2013). As a personality trait, narcissism is characterized by inflated perspectives of authority, superiority, vanity, and enti-
tlement (Ackerman et al., 2011). Within organizational contexts, narcissism has been linked to both positive and negative outcomes
(Judge et al., 2006). For example, narcissism increases entrepreneurial self-efficacy, leads to stronger entrepreneurial intentions
(Mathieu and St-Jean, 2013), and strengthens the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance in dynamic
environments (Engelen et al., 2016). Further, entrepreneurs higher in narcissism may be more likely to pursue more novel oppor-
tunities (Navis and Ozbek, 2016). In contrast, narcissistic personality traits can have a downside (Miller, 2015). Recent evidence
suggests that narcissism is positively associated with unproductive entrepreneurial motives (Hmieleski and Lerner, 2016). Ad-
ditionally, narcissism may make organizational leaders less prepared to respond to environmental shocks (Patel and Cooper, 2014).
Taken as a whole, narcissism is potentially a double-edged sword, offering both advantages and disadvantages with regards to key
entrepreneurial outcomes.
Narcissists are often fixated on their need for attention and admiration, and frequently display a sense of entitlement and su-
periority to those around them (Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2007). When conversing with others, narcissistic individuals highlight
information concerning their accomplishments, their authority and superior knowledge, their positive personal attributes, and their
right to the ‘finer things’ in life (Iivonen and Moisander, 2015; Vangelisti et al., 1990). Building on this notion, we define narcissistic
rhetoric as language meant to stress achievements and authority as well as represent why individuals are entitled or have earned the
right to particular rewards or privileges. Because entrepreneurs have shown to be higher in narcissism and exhibit narcissistic
characteristics (Mathieu and St-Jean, 2013), it is reasonable to expect that aspects of narcissism are reflected in the language used by
entrepreneurs when pitching or describing their business to others.
From a social role perspective, it likely that successful entrepreneurs are expected to portray some level of narcissism (Grijalva
and Harms, 2014), and that moderate displays of narcissistic rhetoric could benefit crowdfunding campaigns. Indeed, many of the
characteristics associated with the role of successful entrepreneurs are associated with displayed narcissism. For example, displayed
narcissism can convey confidence, which can be beneficial to entrepreneurial endeavors (Hayward et al., 2010). When raising funds,
crowdfunding campaigns with low levels of narcissistic rhetoric could be seen as less appealing due to the lack of confidence they
portray, whereas campaigns with more moderate levels of narcissistic rhetoric could benefit from the perceived confidence conveyed
by the campaign narrative. Additionally, narcissistic individuals may be judged to be more creative when pitching ideas (Goncalo
et al., 2010), and more popular in situations where they are not acquainted with their target audience (Back et al., 2010). Again, this
would provide benefits from a crowdfunding perspective, with campaigns that include more moderate levels of narcissistic rhetoric
being perceived as more creative than those with little or no narcissistic content. Furthermore, narcissistic characteristics have been
found to be highly beneficial in forging relationships in short-term contexts with previously unacquainted individuals (Campbell and
Campbell, 2009). As such, crowdfunding campaigns with moderate, as opposed to low, levels of narcissistic rhetoric could be more
successful at establishing the types of short-term relationships that are imperative in the crowdfunding context. Finally, those dis-
playing narcissistic characteristics are often seen as charismatic (Emrich et al., 2001) and likeable (Roskos-Ewoldsen et al., 2002) –
both qualities that can substantially increase persuasion (Mio et al., 2005; Roskos-Ewoldsen et al., 2002). In total, it is likely that
narcissistic rhetoric could provide benefits for individuals attempting to raise funds from crowdfunding campaigns as such rhetoric
embodies characteristics associated with successful entrepreneurs.
While narcissistic rhetoric could benefit crowdfunding efforts, employing such language is not without potential risks. It is
possible that as the level of narcissistic rhetoric moves from moderate to high levels that the effect that it has on crowdfunding
performance could become detrimental. Highly narcissistic individuals can be perceived as overly aggressive (Ronningstam, 2005),
overconfident, and arrogant (Campbell et al., 2004), which can lead to unfavorable impressions by others. In crowdfunding, this
suggests that high levels of narcissistic rhetoric communicating these qualities could produce unfavorable impressions and ultimately
harm funding performance. Additionally, highly narcissistic individuals may be seen as less honest as a result of ‘over claiming’
(Paulhus et al., 2003). Because crowdfunding investors are often unacquainted with the entrepreneur and have little recourse should
the entrepreneur fail to deliver on his or her promises, investors must rely on their perceptions of an entrepreneur's honesty and
willingness to make good on campaign promises. As such, entrepreneurs viewed as less honest as a result of their campaign language
should be less successful in raising funds through crowdfunding. In sum, it is likely that the inclusion of narcissistic rhetoric in
crowdfunding could be beneficial up to a point, with moderate amounts of narcissistic rhetoric proving beneficial in conveying
confidence and creativity as well as establishing short-term relationships with potential investors. However, extreme levels of nar-
cissistic rhetoric could create the impression that the individuals behind the campaign are arrogant, overconfident, and ultimately
less honest, which could in turn diminish fundraising performance. Based upon this logic, we propose the following:
Hypothesis 1. Narcissistic rhetoric will have a curvilinear, inverted-U shaped relationship with crowdfunding performance.

3.2. Sex, narcissistic language, and crowdfunding

A significant body of narcissism research has recognized a connection between narcissism and sex – establishing narcissism as a
masculine trait (Grijalva et al., 2015a). In-line with these expectations, this research has found narcissism to be higher in males than

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in females (Stinson et al., 2008). The association of narcissism with masculinity parallels other expectations of males in Western
culture, such as displays of assertiveness and dominance (Corry et al., 2008). This association of narcissism with masculinity suggests
that when males exhibit narcissistic characteristics, society is more likely to accept these displays as appropriate (Wood and Eagly,
2002).
In contrast to narcissism's emphasis on the self, Western society expects females to be feminine, often construed as being
agreeable, compassionate, and selfless (Grijalva et al., 2015b). Gender role research suggests that females are evaluated less favorably
when they exhibit masculine characteristics (Eagly and Karau, 2002), placing them at a disadvantage where the social norms as-
sociated with strong leadership coincides with stereotypically masculine characteristics (Carli and Eagly, 1999). As a result, research
indicates that females face harsher penalties for displaying narcissistic behavior than do males (De Hoogh et al., 2015). For example,
females are perceived more negatively when they are assertive and direct (Eagly et al., 1992) and females who seek power are
penalized (Okimoto and Brescoll, 2010). Furthermore, females may be punished for self-promotion (Wood and Eagly, 2012), and
recent evidence suggests that female leaders who exhibit higher levels of narcissistic behaviors are judged to be more ineffective than
their male counterparts who display similar levels of such behaviors (De Hoogh et al., 2015).
Males and females are routinely subjected to gender role stereotypes and face social pressure to behave in-line with those roles,
often experiencing backlash if they deviate from expectations (Rudman et al., 2012a; Rudman et al., 2012b). As such, because males
are more closely linked with social expectations of having higher levels of narcissism than females, males who use more narcissistic
rhetoric in their crowdfunding texts may be judged more favorably. It follows, then, that the relationship between narcissistic rhetoric
and fundraising performance will be more pronounced for males than it is for females. Specifically, while we expect the relationship
between narcissistic rhetoric and crowdfunding performance to remain curvilinear, males may receive more benefit from using
narcissistic rhetoric before the narcissistic rhetoric-crowdfunding performance turns negative. Simply put, crowdfunding perfor-
mance will be higher for males using narcissistic rhetoric when the relationship reaches its inflection point. Based upon this logic, we
propose the following:
Hypothesis 2. An entrepreneur's sex positively moderates the curvilinear relationship between narcissistic rhetoric and
crowdfunding performance such that males will experience greater performance from using narcissistic rhetoric before the
relationship between narcissistic rhetoric and crowdfunding performance becomes negative.

3.3. Sexual orientation, narcissistic language, and crowdfunding

Another factor associated with narcissism is sexual orientation (Foster et al., 2006). Beginning with the work of Freud (Freud,
1918, 1923), narcissism has been linked to sexual orientation and sexual identity formation. Research from the field of psycho-
analysis generally agrees that there is a connection between homosexuality and narcissism (Lingiardi and Capozzi, 2004; Sullivan,
2004). Individuals who identify as homosexual generally score higher on most measures of narcissism (Rubinstein, 2010). Moreover,
research into social roles indicates that narcissism is linked to less restricted forms of sexual attitudes and behaviors, and is thereby
more likely to be associated with individuals of the LGBTQ communities (Foster et al., 2006). Indeed, LGBTQ individuals are often
stereotyped into categories that mirror certain aspects of narcissism (e.g., the flamboyant gay male, the masculine lesbian female;
Clausell and Fiske, 2005; Cox et al., 2016), and research suggests that members of these groups might indeed exhibit higher levels of
certain narcissistic characteristics. For example, homosexuality has been linked with higher levels of exhibitionism (Långström and
Seto, 2006) and vanity (Furnham and Saito, 2009). Additionally, lesbian females are often characterized as more independent, self-
sufficient, and dominant than their heterosexual counterparts (Tully, 2000). Furthermore, research has suggested that members of the
LGBTQ community can be more outspoken and aggressive in certain contexts (Scourfield et al., 2008).
As such, it is possible that social perceptions regarding individuals who self-identify as LGBTQ could be more apt to allow for
narcissistic characteristics and behaviors from individuals within those categories as narcissistic characteristics fit the social ‘role’ of
LGBTQ individuals. Therefore, while narcissistic rhetoric could be detrimental to certain categories of minorities (e.g., females), for
members of the LGBTQ community – who are also considered a minority group – use of narcissistic rhetoric could actually prove
beneficial. One reason for this distinction lies in the social role expectations that exist for different minority categories. Whereas
women who employ narcissistic rhetoric could be perceived as rebelling against commonly held social norms, members of the LGBTQ
community could instead be seen as conforming to social expectations by employing narcissistic rhetoric. If this is indeed the case,
LGBTQ entrepreneurs may receive more benefit from using narcissistic rhetoric before the narcissistic rhetoric-crowdfunding per-
formance turns negative. Specifically, crowdfunding performance would be higher for LGBTQ individuals using narcissistic rhetoric
at the inflection point. Based upon this reasoning, we propose the following:
Hypothesis 3. An entrepreneur's expressed sexual orientation positively moderates the curvilinear relationship between narcissistic
rhetoric and crowdfunding performance such that those who identify as LGBTQ will experience greater performance from using
narcissistic rhetoric than non-LGBTQ individuals before the relationship between narcissistic rhetoric and crowdfunding performance
becomes negative.

3.4. Race, narcissistic language, and crowdfunding

In addition to the influence that sex and sexual orientation can have on the relationship between narcissistic language and
crowdfunding performance, it is likely that race will also impact this association. Similar to the social norms and stereotypes assigned

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to the sexes, racial stereotypes and assumptions can substantially influence perceptions and attitudes (Sabin et al., 2008; Valentino
et al., 2002). Indeed, research regarding social role theory suggests that racial identity can play an important part in the development
and acceptance of social roles (Fouad and Brown, 2000). For example, ethnicity bias has been shown to be negatively related to
favorable judgments (Segrest Purkiss et al., 2006). Race can play a role in predicting perceptions of source credibility (Beaudoin and
Thorson, 2005) — with racial minorities often being viewed as less credible. Moreover, ethnic identity can influence trustworthiness
(Spence et al., 2013), and stereotypes regarding successful leaders and managers are more closely associated with Caucasians than
with racial minorities (Chung-Herrera and Lankau, 2005). Additionally, and salient to the crowdfunding context, ethnicity and racial
cues often have a stronger influence on social judgments and credibility in situations where little other information is available and
the need for cognitive processing is relatively low (Florack et al., 2001; Hong and Len-Riós, 2015).
Thus, with regards to how race might moderate the influence narcissistic language has on fundraising performance, we propose
that commensurate with prevailing social attitudes and norms, narcissistic language within crowdfunding campaigns will be more
tolerated from Caucasians than from racial minorities. Furthermore, because of the implicit racial influences that are associated with
situations that contain limited amounts of objective information, it is likely that racial minority-led campaigns will be more critically
judged for using narcissistic rhetoric. Specifically, racial minorities will receive less benefit from using narcissistic rhetoric before the
narcissistic rhetoric-crowdfunding performance turns negative. Specifically, crowdfunding performance will be lower for racial
minorities at the inflection point. Accordingly, we propose the following:
Hypothesis 4. An entrepreneur's race negatively moderates the curvilinear relationship between narcissistic rhetoric and
crowdfunding performance such that racial minorities will experience lower performance when using narcissistic rhetoric than
Caucasians before the relationship between narcissistic rhetoric and crowdfunding performance becomes negative.

4. Methods

Our sample is drawn from Kickstarter, one of the world's largest rewards-based crowdfunding sites. Kickstarter has provided over
USD 3.4 billion of investment to entrepreneurs to over 138,007 successful campaigns to date (Kickstarter, 2018). We initially began
with a sample of 1900 campaigns resulting from a combination of two datasets. One data set included a sample of 900 campaigns
drawn prior to 2013 and the second set included 1000 collected in 2016. Two suspended campaigns and three canceled campaigns
were eliminated, leaving a sample of 1895. In addition, after all controls and independent variables necessary for our analysis had
been coded, 32 campaigns contained missing or incomplete data that prevented further analysis. Once these observations were
removed, we were left with 1863 campaigns with 47% of the observations originating before 2013 and 53% after 2013.

4.1. Dependent variable

Our dependent variable, crowdfunding performance, highlights different aspects of crowdfunding success. Past crowdfunding
literature has operationalized crowdfunding performance in a variety of ways (e.g., Allison et al., 2015; Bi et al., 2017; Calic and
Mosakowski, 2016). Indeed, Ahlers et al. (2015, p.7) argue that crowdfunding performance is “multifaceted” and operationalize
crowdfunding performance through several variables, including the amount raised and number of individual investors. Parhankangas
and Renko (2017) operationalize crowdfunding performance through whether the goal set at the beginning of the campaign was met
or not. Consequently, we follow prior precedent and operationalize crowdfunding performance with three different variables that
collectively capture the magnitude and scope of crowdfunding performance.
First, we operationalize crowdfunding performance using a continuous funds raised variable. This captures the total funds raised
by the end of the campaign irrespective of the funding goal set by the entrepreneur or whether the goal was met (Belleflamme et al.,
2014). This continuous measure is valuable for at least three reasons. First, although Kickstarter requires that campaigns raise at least
their funding goal to receive any funds, other platforms allow entrepreneurs to receive funds without meeting their overall goal.
Thus, a continuous measure enables better generalizability to other platforms. Second, on Kickstarter and other platforms there is no
cap to the amount of funding that may be earned by campaigns once the goal has been raised. Accordingly, this measure enables the
differentiation among firms that barely meet their fundraising goals and firms that raise far more than their fundraising goals. Finally,
this continuous measure facilitates comparisons to extant entrepreneurial finance research using funds raised as the dependent
variable (e.g., Ahlers et al., 2015).
Second, we operationalize crowdfunding performance using a continuous variable for the number of individuals that supported a
campaign that we label backers (e.g., Bi et al., 2017; Vismara, 2016). In crowdfunding, regardless of the platform being used, gaining
smaller investments from a larger number of people is critical to a successful campaign (Skirnevskiy et al., 2017). Thus, like the funds
raised variable, a backers variable enables generalizability to other platforms. Because many backers are also customers, gaining more
backers is indicative of the potential market for the product or service, with ventures primed for success having larger markets for
their products (Belleflamme et al., 2014).
Our third variable, success, captures whether the funding goal set at the beginning of the campaign was met (e.g., Parhankangas
and Renko, 2017). In a sample of Kickstarter campaigns, this is a valuable operationalization of performance because if the funding
goal is not fully met during the duration of the campaign, the entrepreneur receives none of the funding (Mollick, 2014). For
campaigns that met their goal, the success variable was coded as ‘1’ and was coded as ‘0’ otherwise. This operationalization is similar
to the dichotomous fundraising operationalizations in existing entrepreneurial finance research (e.g. Allison et al., 2013).

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4.2. Independent variable

We operationalize our independent variable, narcissistic rhetoric, using content analysis. Content analysis broadly refers to a series
of techniques where organizationally produced content is coded to assess meaning (McKenny et al., 2016). To measure narcissistic
rhetoric, we incorporate both computer-aided text analysis (CATA) and manual coding to leverage the strengths and mitigate the
weaknesses of each technique. In regard to CATA, we follow Short et al.'s (2010) procedure for developing and validating word lists.
This approach is a particularly valuable method for analyzing large volumes of texts, such as crowdfunding narratives because
dictionary-based procedures minimize the threat of intercoder disagreement and coder fatigue relative to manual coding (McKenny
et al., 2016; Parhankangas and Ehrlich, 2014). CATA has been widely applied in management and entrepreneurship research to
understand the role of language in organizational and entrepreneurial phenomena (e.g., Anglin et al., 2016; Gielnik et al., 2015;
Parhankangas and Ehrlich, 2014). For example, CATA has been used to assess entrepreneur emotions (e.g., Wolfe and Shepherd,
2015), entrepreneurial orientation (e.g., Short et al., 2010), linguistic styles in crowdfunding pitches (e.g., Parhankangas and Renko,
2017), and positive psychological capital (e.g., Anglin et al., 2018; McKenny et al., 2013). We relied on the CAT Scanner CATA tool
(McKenny et al., 2012). CAT Scanner is designed to accommodate single words, phrases, and word stems in its analysis, allowing us to
capture both words and brief phrases associated with narcissism.
We develop our content analytic measures to parallel the seven-dimensional conceptualization of narcissism utilized in the
narcissistic personality inventory (NPI) advanced by Raskin and Terry (1988). The seven dimensions of narcissism include: authority,
superiority, exhibitionism, vanity, self-sufficiency, exploitativeness, and entitlement. When creating new dictionaries, we follow the
procedures outlined by Short et al. (2010) and integrate both inductive and deductive methods to develop a dictionary representative
of each of the seven dimensions of the NPI. We initially identified a group of core words conceptually central to each dimension.
Then, we expanded these core words into initial deductive word lists by using thesauruses to identify synonyms of each word and
conjugated each identified word (McKenny et al., 2013; Short et al., 2010). In several instances, organizational research has used
existing CATA dictionaries to measure closely related constructs. To maximize content validity, we added the words from these
dictionaries to our initial deductive lists for evaluation. We outline our process for creating each word list below.
Authority rhetoric reflects the dimension of the NPI noted by Raskin and Terry (1988) where individuals projected themselves as
leaders. Specific items in the original measure that loaded on the authority dimension included statements such as “I would prefer to
be a leader” and “I see myself as a good leader.” Consequently, we developed word lists to detect instances where crowdfunding
campaigns projected their entrepreneurs in a leadership role. Specifically, we identified ‘authority’, ‘leader’, and ‘expert’ as being
highly representative of authority rhetoric and used these words as a basis for our initial deductive word list. We supplemented our
initial deductive word list by examining words identified as relevant to authority claims in Moral Foundations Theory's Authority
dictionary (i.e., Graham et al., 2009). Words from this dictionary include ‘control’, ‘command’, and ‘supremacy’.
Superiority rhetoric reflects language indicative of being extraordinary, representing the Raskin and Terry (1988) Superiority
dimension. Original NPI items loading high on superiority included statements such as, “I am an extraordinary person” and “I think I
am a special person.” We include comparative and superlative positive evaluation words such as ‘better’, ‘superior’, and ‘greatest’ as
basis words for developing this dictionary because such words imply a direct comparison between the entrepreneur and a comparison
group, with the entrepreneur being presented as superior.
Exhibitionism rhetoric represents language indicative of self-praise or praise of others, and is characterized by publicly showing off
to attract attention (e.g., Leung, 2013). This measure captures the Raskin and Terry (1988) Exhibitionism dimension. Original items
assessing exhibitionism assessed phrases such as “I am apt to show off if I get the chance” and “modesty doesn't become me.” To
capture this dynamic in crowdfunding campaigns, we developed a word list emphasizing the tendency to use adjectives that might
paint the entrepreneur and those associated with him/her in a positive light. Words in this dictionary were derived from positive
adjectives such as ‘excellent’, ‘brilliant’, ‘great’, ‘fantastic’, and ‘huge’. We supplemented our initial deductive word list with words
from the DICTION Praise dictionary. Examples of praise words in DICTION include those emphasizing social and physical qualities
(e.g., ‘witty’, ‘handsome’, or ‘beautiful’) as well as praise of personal descriptions (e.g., ‘conscientious’ and ‘renowned’; Hart and
Carroll, 2013).
Vanity rhetoric represents language communicating excessive pride or admiration of one's self and abilities, and captures the
Raskin and Terry's (1988) Vanity dimension. Original items were reflected in statements such as “I like to look at myself in the
mirror” or “I like to look at my body.” For this dictionary, we developed an initial deductive word list based on synonyms of ‘proud’
and their conjugations. We supplemented this initial list using DICTION's self-reference dictionary, which captures first-person re-
ferences, for example, ‘I’, ‘I'm’, ‘me’ and ‘myself’ (Hart and Carroll, 2013). High usage of these first-person pronouns has been applied
routinely in previous narcissism research to reliably capture self-admiration and has served as a primary indicator of narcissism in
past research (e.g., Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2007; Gerstner et al., 2013; O'Reilly et al., 2014).
Self-sufficiency rhetoric represents language indicating autonomy and individualistic action without external constraints (e.g.,
Almond, 2004), and captures the Raskin and Terry (1988) Self-sufficiency dimension. Example of items in this dimension include
statements such as “I am more capable than other people” and “I like to take responsibility for making decisions.” We construct our
initial deductive word list using synonyms of ‘responsible’ and ‘capable.’ We supplemented our initial self-sufficiency word lists using
words from two closely-related dictionaries. First, we included DICTION's Liberation word list. Liberation language conveys the
maximization of individual choice through words such as ‘autonomy’, ‘freedom’ and ‘emancipation’ (Hart and Carroll, 2013). Second,
we leveraged word lists previously used to capture the autonomy dimension of entrepreneurial orientation. Examples of words in this
list include ‘empowered’ and ‘self-directed’ and have been validated in previous studies using CATA (i.e., McKenny et al., 2016; Short
et al., 2010).

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Exploitativeness rhetoric is manipulative language used to deceive others in the pursuit of a desired goal (e.g., Choi et al., 2015).
Original items in this dimension include statements such as “I find it easy to manipulate people” and “I can usually talk my way out of
anything.” We identified ‘cheating’, ‘deceit’, and ‘manipulate’ as being highly representative of exploitativeness rhetoric and used
these words as a basis for our initial deductive word list.
Entitlement rhetoric persuades people through communicating a sense of deservingness in that a speaker assumes they are entitled
to more than others because of their inherent uniqueness (e.g., Ackerman and Donnellan, 2013; Campbell et al., 2004). Original items
in this dimension include statements such as “I will never be satisfied until I get all that I deserve” and “I expect a great deal from
other people.” We identified ‘conceited’, ‘boastful’, and ‘self-centered’ as being highly representative of exploitative rhetoric and used
these words as a basis for our initial deductive word list.
Once the initial deductive word lists were created for each dimension, we created initial inductive word lists comprised of all
words used three or more times in our sample of narratives to capture potentially relevant words not uncovered in the deductive
process. We then compiled the deductive and inductive lists into final lists for evaluation. Two authors evaluated each list to identify
whether each word, if presented in a crowdfunding narrative, would reflect the associated dimension of narcissistic rhetoric. We
calculated interrater reliability for each list using Holsti's (1969) method (e.g., Short et al., 2010). We observed interrater reliabilities
of 0.90 for Authority and Exploitativeness, 0.93 for Superiority, 0.85 for Exhibitionism, 0.97 for Entitlement, 0.92 for Vanity, and
0.95 for Self-sufficiency. This compares favorably to the heuristic of 0.80 as the minimum threshold for satisfactory interrater
reliability in content analysis research (Krippendorff, 2004). After calculating interrater reliability, the two authors resolved all
disagreements through discussion. The final word lists for each dimension are presented in Appendix A1.

4.3. Validating our rhetoric measure

After developing our seven dictionaries we then sought to assess the validity and structure of our rhetoric measure as a whole.
First, we performed an exploratory factor analysis on the scores for each of the seven dictionaries for insight into the factor structure
of our measure. Past narcissism research has often used a factor loading of 0.40 when determining which items to include or exclude
for measures originating from the NPI (e.g., Corry et al., 2008). We adopt the same approach. Our initial loadings suggested a two-
factor solution with the authority (loading = 0.79), exhibitionism (loading = 0.91), self-sufficiency (loading = 0.76), superiority
(loading = 0.78) and vanity (loading = 0.84) dimensions loading on one factor (eigenvalue = 3.47) and the entitlement
(loading = 0.78) and exploitativeness (loading = 0.59) dimensions loading on another factor (eigenvalue = 1.01). This finding is
consistent with past work using the NPI indicating that the entitlement and exploitativeness dimensions may only be weakly asso-
ciated with the other five dimensions of the NPI (e.g., Tschanz et al., 1998).
Upon conducting the initial exploratory factor analysis, we then conducted a parallel analysis. Parallel analysis corrects for
normal sampling error when determining how many and which factors should be retained and adjusts factor eigenvalues by this error
(Fabrigar et al., 1999; Ruscio and Roche, 2012). The adjusted eigenvalue for the five-dimensional factor was 3.41 and the adjusted
eigenvalue for the two-dimensional factor was 0.96. Parallel analysis recommends that factors with adjusted eigenvalues that fall
below a value of 1.00 be excluded (Ruscio and Roche, 2012). Following this recommendation, we are left with a five-dimensional one
factor solution. The Cronbach's alpha for this five-dimensional factor is 0.88.
We then conducted a confirmatory factor analysis on the five-dimensional measures which reveals a good fitting model
(χ2 = 39.29; RMSEA = 0.06; CFI = 0.99; TLI = 0.98; SRMR = 0.02). Overall, the results of these analyses point to a signal factor
solution for narcissistic rhetoric that includes the authority, exhibitionism, self-sufficiency, superiority, and vanity dimensions.

4.4. Moderating variables

Our study suggests that the influence of narcissistic rhetoric on crowdfunding performance is moderated by an entrepreneur's sex,
sexual orientation, and race/ethnicity. Entrepreneur sex was coded with a dummy variable coded ‘1’ for campaigns led by a female
entrepreneur and coded ‘0’ for campaigns led by a male entrepreneur (e.g., Davis et al., 2017). Entrepreneurs using Kickstarter will, at
times, identify as being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) in their campaign. If the entrepreneur made such an
identification, an LGBTQ variable to represent sexual orientation was coded as ‘1’ for those campaigns where an entrepreneur
identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ) and ‘0’ otherwise. Finally, racial minority was coded ‘1’ for African
American, Hispanic, and other racial minorities and ‘0’ for Caucasians (e.g., Davis et al., 2017; Freeland and Keister, 2016).

4.5. Controls

Building on prior crowdfunding research, we use several controls to account for the previously established antecedents of funding
performance. First, we controlled for several factors indicative of campaign or venture quality. Specifically, we control the inclusion
of a video (video = 1; no video = 0), the effect of past entrepreneurial experience mentioned by the entrepreneur (experience = 1;
otherwise = 0), the natural log of past campaigns created by the entrepreneur, the natural log of the number of Facebook friends, and
the use of numerical terms using the DICTION 7.0 numerical term dictionary, and the number of campaign visuals (e.g., Anglin et al.,

1
The narcissistic rhetoric dictionaries have been added to the CAT Scanner software (McKenny et al., 2012), which is a free Windows-based application for
conducting computer-aided text analyses available at http://www.catscanner.net/.

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2018; Davis et al., 2017; Parhankangas and Renko, 2017). In addition, if a campaign was featured staff pick (meaning that it has been
identified by the Kickstarter staff as a project they support), a staff pick variable was coded as ‘1’, while other campaigns were coded
as ‘0’.
We also control for campaign and entrepreneur characteristics. Campaign duration refers to the length of time for which funds can
be raised and is commonly controlled for in crowdfunding research, as successful projects tend to be shorter in duration (Davis et al.,
2017). We control for the natural log of the funding goal because lower funding goals are more frequently met than higher goals
(Mollick, 2014). Sex and ethnicity of entrepreneurs have been shown to directly influence funding preferences (e.g., Davis et al.,
2017). As such, we control for the direct of effects of sex and racial minority.

4.6. Model estimation procedures

Our independent variable may be endogenous. Longer campaign narratives may increase the probability that narcissistic rhetoric
is captured, thus it is important to remove the influence of campaign narrative length. Because narrative length is also predictive of
crowdfunding performance, we cannot use instrumental variable techniques to correct for this influence as the assumptions needed
for such techniques would be violated (Wooldridge, 2015). Accordingly, we follow past studies leveraging content analysis and divide
our rhetoric measure by the word length of each campaign narrative (e.g., Allison et al., 2013). We then multiply this score by 100. As
such, a score of 7 indicates that 7% of the language used in campaign texts relates to narcissism. This approach removes the influence
of length from both the independent and dependent variable in our analysis.
We estimate our models using multilevel modeling. Multilevel modeling is a widely used statistical technique for analyzing nested
data in management and entrepreneurship research, including crowdfunding research (e.g., Davis et al., 2017; Uy et al., 2015).
Crowdfunding platforms place all individual campaigns into categories, thus nesting campaigns within these categories. In addition,
our sample includes projects from five years: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2016. Therefore, each campaign is further nested into the
year in which it was launched. As such, our controls and independent variables make up level 1 of our models, categories make up
level 2 of our models, and years make up level 3 of our models.
We use two different statistical techniques to estimate our models. We use multilevel generalized linear modeling to estimate our
models for funds raised and the number of backers. GLM is a generalization of linear modeling that allows for dependent variables to
have non-normal distributions (McCullagh, 1984). We employ this modeling technique because both of these dependent variables are
non-normally distributed and follow a right skewed, gamma distribution. As such, we leverage GLMs that utilize the gamma dis-
tribution with a log link to account for this non-normality and to mitigate the influence of extreme observations on our results (e.g.,
Ballinger, 2004). Note that an alternative to this approach would be to use a natural log or inverse hyperbolic sine transformation on
the dependent variables and estimate using GLM models with a Gaussian (i.e. normal) distribution. However, the GLM models
utilizing the gamma distributions yielded models with significantly better fit than the alternative approach. We use multilevel logistic
regression to estimate our models for the success dependent variable. The coefficients for these models are reported as log-odds.

5. Results

Table 1 provides the descriptive statistics and correlations for our sample. Tables 2, 3, and 4 provide the results of our hypothesis
tests for the funds raised, backers, and success variables respectively. These tables include both the coefficients and marginal effects
(ME) of our models. Because of the non-linear nature of our models the MEs allow for a more intuitive calculation of the influence of
narcissistic rhetoric on performance. Hypothesis 1 proposed that narcissistic rhetoric will exhibit an inverted-U relationship with
crowdfunding performance. In the main effects models for all three dependent variables the quadratic coefficients were all negative
and significant (funds raised: b = −0.01, p < 0.05, ME = −187.05, p < 0.05; backers: b = −0.01, p < 0.01, ME = −1.87,
p < 0.05; success: b = −0.01, p < 0.05, ME = −0.001, p < 0.05). Fig. 1A, B, and C provide plots of the relationships for the funds
raised, backers, and success relationships, respectively, and are consistent with the proposed inverted-U relationship. Thus, Hypothesis
1 is supported. Because our relationships are non-linear and do not lend themselves to ‘an increase in X leads to an increase in Y’
interpretation, we used the marginal effects to calculate the inflection points to provide insight into the level of narcissistic rhetoric
that is most beneficial for each dependent variable, while also providing a threshold beyond which narcissistic rhetoric reduces each
dependent variable. The inflection points are as follows: fund raised = 8.87%, backers = 8.48%, success = 10.00%.
Hypothesis 2 proposed that males will accrue greater performance benefits for using narcissistic rhetoric before the narcissistic
rhetoric-crowdfunding performance relationship turns negative than females. None of the sex moderating coefficients or MEs in our
models were statistically significant. Thus, Hypothesis 2 is not supported.
Hypothesis 3 proposed that LGBTQ individuals will accrue greater performance benefits for using narcissistic rhetoric before the
narcissistic rhetoric-performance relationship turns negative than non-LGBTQ individuals. The quadratic moderating term in the
success model is negative and significant (b = −0.25, p < 0.05, ME = −0.04, p < 0.05). Fig. 2 is consistent with the idea that that
LGBTQ individuals will accrue greater performance benefits for using narcissistic rhetoric before the relationship turns negative than
non-LGBTQ individuals, providing support for Hypothesis 3. The graph relating to the interaction between narcissistic rhetoric and
LGBTQ implies that LGBTQ individuals accrue greater benefits at moderate levels, but that they underperform non-LGBTQ in-
dividuals at high levels of narcissistic rhetoric. We elaborate on this finding in our discussion. The moderating terms for the funds
raised and backers models were not significant. Overall, we find mixed support for Hypothesis 3.
Hypothesis 4 proposed that racial minorities will experience lower performance when using narcissistic rhetoric before the
relationship narcissistic rhetoric-performance relationship turns negative than Caucasians. The quadratic moderating terms were

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Table 1
Descriptive statistics.
Variablesa Mean S.D. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Funds raised 8411.89 62,941.91

Backers 100.05 382.45 0.59
Success 0.44 0.50 0.13 0.25
Narcissistic rhetoric 42.26 39.00 0.13 0.24 0.13
(raw score)
Narcissistic rhetoric 7.16 2.91 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.26
(ratio)
Female 0.29 0.46 −0.04 −0.07 0.04 −0.01 0.09
Visuals 4.83 6.57 0.23 0.31 0.18 0.44 −0.04 −0.10

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Facebook friends 3.09 3.30 −0.03 0.00 0.08 0.07 0.08 0.00 0.05
Funding goal 8.48 1.56 0.13 0.17 −0.27 0.24 −0.03 −0.07 0.20 −0.01
Duration 36.03 15.21 0.00 −0.01 −0.11 −0.06 −0.07 0.00 −0.09 −0.10 0.12
Staff pick 0.08 0.28 0.20 0.29 0.30 0.21 −0.02 0.00 0.22 −0.02 0.09 −0.01
Video 0.70 0.46 0.07 0.11 0.15 0.22 0.04 −0.07 0.24 0.03 0.15 −0.06 0.17
Created 0.28 0.58 0.02 0.09 0.17 0.04 −0.10 −0.08 0.10 0.09 −0.15 −0.07 0.06 0.00
Experience 0.17 0.38 0.06 0.11 0.12 0.06 −0.04 −0.05 0.04 0.07 −0.01 0.06 0.08 −0.04 0.47
Racial minority 0.21 0.41 −0.04 −0.06 −0.13 −0.08 −0.03 −0.01 −0.01 −0.05 0.00 0.04 −0.05 −0.06 −0.03 −0.04
Numerical terms 18.71 23.81 0.08 0.17 0.20 0.36 −0.17 −0.06 0.25 −0.01 0.08 0.01 0.17 0.22 0.14 0.08 −0.07
LGBTQ 0.01 0.12 −0.01 −0.01 0.00 0.02 −0.03 0.02 −0.03 0.03 0.01 0.04 0.01 0.02 −0.01 0.02 −0.02 0.00

a
Correlations with an absolute value > 0.05 and 0.06 are statistically significant at p < 0.05 and p < 0.01, respectively.
Journal of Business Venturing 33 (2018) 780–812
A.H. Anglin et al. Journal of Business Venturing 33 (2018) 780–812

Table 2
Funds raised results.
Variables Controls .M.E. Main effects M.E. Sex M.E. LGBTQ M.E. Racial M.E.
moderator moderator minority
moderator

Sex 0.11 2681.18 0.10 2425.25 0.21 4956.56 0.10 2356.43 0.10 2461.90
(0.09) (2293.10) (0.09) (2254.66) (0.45) (10,606.90) (0.09) (2356.43) (0.09) (2332.49)
Visuals 0.12⁎⁎⁎ 2842.20⁎ 0.12⁎⁎⁎ 2812.81⁎ 0.12⁎⁎⁎ 2797.91⁎ 0.12⁎⁎⁎ 2793.09⁎ 0.12⁎⁎⁎ 2938.50⁎
(0.01) (1193.73) (0.01) (1172.60) (0.01) (1165.37) (0.01) (1163.13) (0.01) (1250.52)
Facebook friends 0.01 295.54 0.01 228.33 0.01 224.04 0.01 205.76 0.01 263.28
(0.01) (295.54) (0.01) (298.93) (0.01) (297.35) (0.01) (295.57) (0.01) (315.44)
Funding goal 0.37⁎⁎⁎ 8830.02⁎⁎ 0.37⁎⁎⁎ 8698.53⁎⁎ 0.37⁎⁎⁎ 8668.00⁎⁎ 0.37⁎⁎⁎ 8633.51⁎⁎ 0.37⁎⁎⁎ 9023.36⁎⁎
(0.03) (3082.79) (0.03) (3012.14) (0.03) (2998.47) (0.03) (2986.03) (0.03) (3206.05)
Duration 0.00 −14.54 0.00 −19.00 0.00 −18.82 0.00 −14.68 0.00 −14.62
(0.00) (66.56) (0.00) (66.58) (0.00) (66.23) (0.00) (66.29) (0.00) (68.71)
Staff pick 1.17⁎⁎⁎ 27,626.67⁎⁎ 1.15⁎⁎⁎ 27,063.79⁎⁎ 1.15⁎⁎⁎ 26,961.35⁎⁎ 1.15⁎⁎⁎ 26,863.96⁎⁎ 1.17⁎⁎⁎ 28,371.6-
(0.14) (10,197.48) (0.14) (9949.01) (0.14) (9900.28) (0.14) (9863.95) (0.14) 6⁎⁎
(10,655.-
80)
Video 0.44⁎⁎⁎ 10,422.34⁎ 0.44⁎⁎⁎ 10,329.10⁎ 0.44⁎⁎⁎ 10,286.56⁎ 0.43⁎⁎⁎ 10,074.34⁎ 0.45⁎⁎⁎ 11,029.8-
(0.09) (4094.21) (0.09) (4036.96) (0.09) (4013.90) (0.09) (3962.43) (0.09) 2⁎
(4376.21)
Created 0.00 35.41 0.00 38.78 0.00 37.91 0.00 37.54 0.00 48.04
(0.01) (234.56) (0.01) (238.27) (0.01) (236.91) (0.01) (236.20) (0.01) (248.82)
Experience 0.34⁎⁎ 7938.27⁎ 0.34⁎⁎ 8003.46⁎ 0.34⁎⁎ 8009.99⁎ 0.34⁎⁎ 7915.48⁎ 0.33⁎⁎ 7993.44⁎
(0.11) (3587.75) (0.11) (3583.35) (0.11) (3578.41) (0.11) (3550.51) (0.11) (3683.66)
Racial minority −0.42⁎⁎⁎ −9952.01⁎ −0.40⁎⁎⁎ −9499.94⁎ −0.41⁎⁎⁎ −9502.89⁎ −0.41⁎⁎⁎ −9578.83⁎ 0.59 14,370.22
(0.10) (4144.53) (0.10) (3980.35) (0.10) (3970.20) (0.10) (3988.81) (0.52) (13,884.-
01)
Numerical terms 0.01⁎⁎⁎ 202.97⁎ 0.01⁎⁎⁎ 205.34+ 0.01⁎⁎⁎ 204.94⁎ 0.01⁎⁎⁎ 204.34⁎ 0.01⁎⁎⁎ 206.48⁎
(0.00) (85.22) (0.00) (85.49) (0.00) (85.22) (0.00) (84.97) (0.00) (87.84)
Narcissism 0.13⁎ 3089.14+ 0.13+ 3147.57 0.13⁎ 3061.38+ 0.18⁎⁎ 4471.05⁎
(0.05) (1667.44) (0.07) (1989.86) (0.06) (1662.51) (0.06) (2153.56)
Narcissism2 −0.01⁎ −187.05⁎ −0.01+ −185.74 −0.01⁎ −184.62+ −0.01⁎⁎ −272.62⁎
(0.00) (95.38) (0.00) (125.67) (0.00) (102.45) (0.00) (130.94)
Narcissism × Sex −0.02 −438.16
(0.11) (2685.76)
Narcissism2 × Sex 0.00 11.31
(0.01) (161.88)
LGBTQ −1.51 −35,257.0-
(1.78) 8
(43,014.38)
Narcissism × LGB- 0.68 15,861.82
TQ (0.66) (16,350.98)
Narcissism2 × LG- −0.07 −1532.40
BTQ (0.06) (1465.88)
Narcissism × raci- −0.32⁎ −7705.2-
al minority (0.15) 4+
(4610.35)
Narcissism2 × rac- 0.02⁎ 517.16+
ial minority (0.01) (287.82)
Constant 3.49⁎⁎⁎ 3.07⁎⁎⁎ 3.04⁎⁎⁎ 3.08⁎⁎⁎ 2.86⁎⁎⁎
(0.28) (0.33) (0.36) (0.33) (0.35)
Variance
components
Categories 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.15
(0.09) (0.09) (0.09) (0.09) (0.09)
Years 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.11 0.11
(0.05) (0.05) (0.05) (0.05) (0.05)
Log-likelihood −15,731.8- −15,728.8- −15,728.7- −15,728.2- 15,726.18
2 7 6 5
N 1863 1863 1863 1863 1863

+
p < 0.10
⁎
p < 0.05.
⁎⁎
p < 0.01.
⁎⁎⁎
p < 0.001.

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Table 3
Number of backers results.
Variables Controls M.E. Main effects M.E. Sex M.E. LGBTQ M.E. Racial M.E.
moderator moderator minority
moderator

Sex 0.14⁎ 40.80+ 0.12+ 35.19+ −0.01 −1.55 0.12+ 34.87 0.11+ 34.77
(0.07) (22.42) (0.07) (21.29) (0.34) (97.40) (0.07) (21.26) (0.07) (22.26)
Visuals 0.12⁎⁎⁎ 35.80⁎⁎ 0.12⁎⁎⁎ 34.33⁎⁎ 0.12⁎⁎⁎ 34.04⁎⁎ 0.12⁎⁎⁎ 34.33⁎⁎ 0.12⁎⁎⁎ 36.90⁎⁎
(0.01) (35.80) (0.01) (10.65) (0.01) (10.56) (0.01) (10.65) (0.01) (11.66)
Facebook friends 0.02⁎ 5.32+ 0.02+ 4.50 0.02+ 4.53 0.02+ 4.45 0.02+ 5.19+
(0.01) (3.01) (0.01) (2.85) (0.01) (2.83) (0.01) (2.85) (0.01) (3.09)
Funding goal 0.17⁎⁎⁎ 50.09⁎⁎⁎ 0.16⁎⁎⁎ 47.38⁎⁎⁎ 0.16⁎⁎⁎ 46.80⁎⁎⁎ 0.16⁎⁎⁎ 47.20⁎⁎⁎ 0.16⁎⁎⁎ 50.34⁎⁎
(0.02) (14.26) (0.02) (13.38) (0.02) (13.22) (0.02) (13.34) (0.02) (14.47)
Duration 0.00 −0.67 0.00 −0.63 −0.00 −0.64 0.00 −0.61 0.00 −0.60
(0.00) (0.67) (0.00) (0.65) (0.00) (0.65) (0.00) (0.65) (0.00) (0.68)
Staff pick 1.23⁎⁎⁎ 366.53⁎⁎ 1.22⁎⁎⁎ 352.10⁎⁎⁎ 1.22⁎⁎⁎ 349.98⁎⁎⁎ 1.22⁎⁎⁎ 351.81⁎⁎⁎ 1.23⁎⁎⁎ 377.34⁎⁎⁎
(0.11) (102.92) (0.11) (97.57) (0.11) (96.91) (0.11) (97.51) (0.11) (106.69)
Video 0.48⁎⁎⁎ 143.32⁎⁎ 0.48⁎⁎⁎ 138.01⁎⁎⁎ 0.48⁎⁎⁎ 137.35⁎⁎⁎ 0.47⁎⁎⁎ 137.22⁎⁎⁎ 0.48⁎⁎⁎ 145.48⁎⁎
(0.07) (41.55) (0.07) (39.47) (0.07) (39.25) (0.07) (39.36) (0.07) (42.48)
Created 0.24⁎⁎⁎ 70.76⁎⁎ 0.25⁎⁎⁎ 71.77⁎⁎ 0.25⁎⁎⁎ 71.07⁎⁎ 0.25⁎⁎⁎ 71.71⁎⁎ 0.25⁎⁎⁎ 76.19⁎⁎
(0.06) (26.34) (0.06) (25.92) (0.06) (25.69) (0.06) (25.91) (0.06) (27.79)
Experience 0.15+ 45.82 0.15+ 43.33 0.15 42.67 0.15 42.69 0.12 36.79
(0.09) (28.54) (0.09) (27.53) (0.09) (27.28) (0.09) (27.49) (0.09) (28.42)
Racial minority −0.44⁎⁎⁎ −132.00⁎⁎ −0.42⁎⁎⁎ −122.52⁎⁎ −0.42⁎⁎⁎ −121.44⁎⁎⁎ −0.43⁎⁎⁎ −122.90⁎⁎ 1.10⁎⁎ 335.80⁎
(0.07) (40.83) (0.07) (37.96) (0.07) (37.60) (0.07) (38.05) (0.38) (149.94)
Numerical terms 0.01⁎⁎⁎ 1.87⁎⁎ 0.01⁎⁎⁎ 1.85⁎⁎ 0.01⁎⁎⁎ 1.84⁎⁎ 0.01⁎⁎⁎ 1.85⁎⁎ 0.01⁎⁎⁎ 1.91⁎⁎
(0.00) (0.66) (0.00) (0.64) (0.00) (0.64) (0.00) (0.64) (0.00) (0.68)
Narcissism 0.11⁎⁎ 33.18⁎ 0.10+ 27.28+ 0.12⁎⁎ 33.66⁎ 0.21⁎⁎⁎ 63.82⁎⁎
(0.04) (14.68) (0.05) (16.57) (0.04) (14.83) (0.05) (21.70)
Narcissism2 −0.01⁎ −1.87⁎ 0.00 −1.43 −0.01⁎ −1.89⁎ −0.01⁎⁎⁎ −3.66⁎⁎
(0.00) (0.90) (0.00) (1.04) (0.00) (0.90) (0.00) (1.29)
Narcissism × sex 0.05 13.84
(0.09) (25.70)
Narcissism2 × sex 0.00 −1.03
(0.01) (1.58)
LGBTQ −0.14 −41.17
(1.35) (386.17)
Narcissism × LGB- 0.14 39.78
TQ (0.49) (142.98)
Narcissism2 × LG- −0.02 −5.07
BTQ (0.04) (12.63)
Narcissism × raci- −0.44⁎⁎⁎ −134.9-
al minority (0.11) 0⁎⁎
(49.42)
Narcissism2 × Ra- 0.03⁎⁎⁎ 8.26⁎⁎
cial minority (0.01) (3.09)
Constant 1.19⁎⁎ 0.80⁎⁎ 0.86⁎⁎ 0.80⁎⁎ 0.43
(0.26) (0.28) (0.26) (0.27)
Variance
components
Categories 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.10 0.10
(0.08) (0.08) (0.08) (0.08) (0.08)
Years 0.21 0.21 0.21 0.21 0.21
(0.07) (0.07) (0.07) (0.07) (0.07)
Log-likelihood −8808.68 −8804.91 −8804.62 −8804.69 −8795.65
N 1863 1863 1863 1863 1863

+
p < 0.10.
⁎
p < 0.05.
⁎⁎
p < 0.01.
⁎⁎⁎
p < 0.001.

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Table 4
Success in meeting funding goal results.
Variables Controls M.E. Main effects M.E. Sex moderator M.E. LGBTQ M.E. Racial minority M.E.
moderator moderator

Sex 0.39+ 0.06⁎ 0.38+ 0.06+ 0.78 0.12 0.39+ 0.06+ 0.37+ 0.06+
(0.20) (0.03) (0.21) (0.03) (0.90) (0.14) (0.21) (0.03) (0.20) (0.03)
Visuals 0.11⁎⁎⁎ 0.02⁎⁎⁎ 0.11⁎⁎⁎ 0.02⁎⁎⁎ 0.11⁎⁎⁎ 0.02⁎⁎⁎ 0.11⁎⁎⁎ 0.02⁎⁎⁎ 0.11⁎⁎⁎ 0.02⁎⁎⁎
(0.01) (0.00) (0.01) (0.00) (0.01) (0.00) (0.01) (0.00) (0.01) (0.00)
Facebook friends 0.04⁎ 0.01⁎ 0.04⁎ 0.01⁎ 0.04⁎ 0.01⁎ 0.04⁎ 0.01⁎ 0.04⁎ 0.01⁎
(0.02) (0.00) (0.02) (0.00) (0.02) (0.00) (0.02) (0.00) (0.02) (0.00)
Funding goal −0.66⁎⁎⁎ −0.10⁎⁎⁎ −0.66⁎⁎⁎ −0.10⁎⁎⁎ −0.66⁎⁎⁎ −0.10⁎⁎⁎ −0.66⁎⁎⁎ −0.10⁎⁎⁎ −0.67⁎⁎⁎ −0.10⁎⁎
(0.05) (0.01) (0.05) (0.01) (0.05) (0.01) (0.05) (0.01) (0.05) (0.01)
Duration −0.01⁎⁎⁎ −0.00⁎⁎⁎ −0.01⁎⁎ −0.00⁎⁎⁎ −0.01⁎⁎ −0.00⁎⁎⁎ −0.01⁎⁎⁎ 0.00⁎⁎ −0.01⁎⁎ 0.00⁎⁎⁎
(0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00)
Staff pick 3.13⁎⁎⁎ 0.48⁎⁎⁎ 3.12⁎⁎⁎ 0.48⁎⁎⁎ 3.14⁎⁎⁎ 0.48⁎⁎⁎ 3.15⁎⁎⁎ 0.48⁎⁎⁎ 3.15⁎⁎⁎ 0.48⁎⁎⁎
(0.54) (0.07) (0.54) (0.07) (0.55) (0.07) (0.54) (0.07) (0.54) (0.07)
Video 0.64⁎⁎⁎ 0.10⁎⁎⁎ 0.62⁎⁎⁎ 0.10⁎⁎⁎ 0.62⁎⁎⁎ 0.10⁎⁎⁎ 0.62⁎⁎⁎ 0.10⁎⁎⁎ 0.63⁎⁎⁎ 0.10⁎⁎⁎
(0.10) (0.02) (0.10) (0.02) (0.10) (0.02) (0.11) (0.02) (0.11) (0.02)
Created 0.22 0.03 0.22 0.03 0.22 0.03 0.21 0.03 0.22 0.03
(0.17) (0.03) (0.17) (0.03) (0.16) (0.03) (0.16) (0.03) (0.17) (0.03)
Experience 0.30+ 0.05⁎ 0.30+ 0.05+ 0.30+ 0.05⁎ 0.31⁎⁎ 0.05⁎ 0.29+ 0.04+
(0.16) (0.02) (0.16) (0.02) (0.16) (0.02) (0.16) (0.02) (0.15) (0.02)
Racial minority −0.47⁎⁎ −0.07⁎ −0.47⁎⁎ −0.07⁎⁎ −0.48⁎⁎ −0.07⁎⁎ −0.48⁎⁎ −0.07⁎⁎ 0.72 0.11
(0.17) (0.03) (0.17) (0.03) (0.17) (0.03) (0.17) (0.03) (0.56) (0.08)
Numerical terms 0.01⁎⁎ 0.00⁎⁎ 0.01⁎⁎⁎ 0.00⁎⁎ 0.01⁎⁎⁎ 0.00⁎⁎⁎ 0.01⁎⁎⁎ 0.00⁎⁎⁎ 0.01⁎⁎⁎ 0.00⁎⁎⁎
(0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00)
Narcissism 0.12⁎ 0.02⁎ 0.13 0.02 0.12⁎ 0.02⁎ 0.18⁎⁎ 0.03⁎⁎⁎
(0.06) (0.01) (0.10) (0.02) (0.06) (0.01) (0.06) (0.01)
Narcissism2 −0.01⁎ 0.001⁎ −0.01 0.00 −0.01 0.00⁎ −0.01⁎⁎ 0.00⁎⁎
(0.00) (0.00) (0.01) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00) (0.00)
Narcissism × sex −0.06 −0.01
(0.20) (0.03)
Narcissism2 × sex 0.00 0.00
(0.01) (0.00)
LGBTQ −10.01⁎ −1.54⁎
(4.54) (0.72)
Narcissism × LGBTQ 3.21⁎ 0.49⁎
(1.42) (0.23)
Narcissism2 × LGBTQ −0.25⁎ −0.04⁎
(0.11) (0.02)
Narcissism × racial −0.35⁎⁎ −0.05⁎⁎
minority (0.12) (0.02)
Narcissism2 × racial 0.02⁎⁎ 0.003⁎⁎
minority (0.01) (0.00)
Constant 3.86⁎⁎⁎ 3.43⁎⁎⁎ 3.32⁎⁎⁎ 3.44⁎⁎⁎ 3.21⁎⁎⁎
(0.34) (0.41) (0.38) (0.42) (0.45)
Variance components
Categories 0.47 0.47 0.47 0.47 0.47
(0.21) (0.21) (0.21) (0.21) (0.21)
Years 0.21 0.21 0.21 0.21 0.21
(0.10) (0.10) (0.10) (0.10) (0.10)
Log-likelihood −919.20 −917.96 −917.37 −916.15 −916.55
N 1863 1863 1863 1863 1863

+
p < 0.10.
⁎
p < 0.05.
⁎⁎
p < 0.01.
⁎⁎⁎
p < 0.001.

significant for all three dependent variables (funds raised: b = 0.02, p < 0.05, ME = 517.16, p = 0.062; backers: b = 0.03,
p < 0.001, ME = 8.26, p < 0.01; success: b = 0.02, p < 0.001, ME = 0.003, p < 0.01). Fig. 3A, B, and C all imply that Cauca-
sians accrue more benefits from narcissistic rhetoric at all levels, which is consistent with Hypothesis 4.

2
Coefficients and marginal effects may have different levels of significance because marginal effects are based on significant as well as insignificant values across the
regression (Hoetker, 2007). The only values of the marginal effect that fall below the generally accepted p < 0.05 significance level occur at extreme levels of
narcissistic rhetoric.

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A B
1.3
3.6
1.25
3.55

Backers
Funds Raised

1.2

3.5 1.15

1.1
3.45
1.05

3.4 1
Low Narcissistic Rhetoric High Narcissistic Rhetoric Low Narcissistic Rhetoric High Narcissistic Rhetoric

C 3.8
3.78
3.76
3.74
Success

3.72
3.7
3.68
3.66
3.64
3.62
3.6
Low Narcissistic Rhetoric High Narcissistic Rhetoric

Fig. 1. Narcissistic rhetoric and crowdfunding performance relationships.

4.4
4.3
4.2
Success

4.1
4
3.9
3.8
3.7
3.6
3.5
Low Narcissistic High Narcissistic
Rhetoric Rhetoric

------------ LGBTQ non-LGBTQ

Fig. 2. Moderating influence of LGBTQ on narcissistic rhetoric and success relationship.

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A
4
3.9
3.8
3.7

Funds Raised
3.6
3.5
3.4
3.3
3.2
3.1
3
Low Narcissistic Rhetoric High Narcissistic Rhetoric

-------------- Racial Minority Caucasian

B C
4.2
1.5
4.1
1.3 4
Success
Backers

3.9
1.1
3.8
0.9 3.7
3.6
0.7
3.5
0.5 3.4
Low Narcissistic Rhetoric High Narcissistic Rhetoric L o w N a r c i s s i s ti c R h e t o r ic H i g h Na r c i s sis t ic R h e t o r i c

-------------- Racial Minority Caucasian -------------- Racial Minority Caucasian

Fig. 3. Moderating influence of racial minority on narcissistic rhetoric and crowdfunding performance relationships.

5.1. Testing our hypotheses in an experimental setting

After conducting our initial analysis, we sought to further examine the relationship between narcissistic rhetoric and crowd-
funding performance in an experimental setting.
We developed 36 individual manipulations for 3 base scenarios originating from actual crowdfunding campaigns in our sample.
Our manipulations included a low versus high narcissistic rhetoric manipulation for each of the base scenarios that were also further
manipulated to capture our moderating variables (e.g., low and high narcissistic rhetoric with a female entrepreneur, LGBTQ en-
trepreneur, and racial minority entrepreneur). The scenarios were presented in random order to each participant. We provide an
example of these manipulations in Appendix B.
We administered our study via Amazon's Mechanical Turk (mTurk) stipulating that those participating in the study must live in
the US and have funded a crowdfunding campaign in the past. The mTurk platform has been used as a valuable source of survey and
experimental data in management and entrepreneurship research (e.g., Allison et al., 2017; Chua, 2013; Yam et al., 2017). We
stipulated that participants must live in the US because our crowdfunding campaigns are predominately located in the US. Parti-
cipants were paid $1.00 to complete the study. We received responses for 768 individuals. To assess the validity of these responses,
we employed several screening devices including timers, directed answer, and content checks (e.g., Allison et al., 2017). After
removing incomplete and erroneous responses, we were left with a sample of 450 individuals that provide 1800 individual responses
to 4 randomly selected scenarios/manipulations (i.e. one response pertaining to each variable of interest). The average time to
complete our survey was 13 min and 39 s.
For each scenario, we provided our definition of narcissistic rhetoric and asked participants to rate the level of narcissistic rhetoric
present in the campaign on a 5-point Likert-type scale, with anchors of Strongly Agree and Strongly Disagree. The mean rating scores
for scenarios with low narcissism and those with high narcissism were significantly different (low narcissism = 2.61, high narcis-
sism = 3.22, p < 0.001) indicating that participants recognize the use of narcissistic rhetoric in campaigns. This finding lends
further validation to our narcissistic rhetoric measure through demonstrating that our measure accurately reflects the definition of
narcissistic rhetoric.
We also asked a series of questions on a 5-point Likert-type scale, with anchors of Strongly Agree and Strongly Disagree. We asked
participants to rate the quality of the idea and the quality of the entrepreneur to control for these factors. Participants were then

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A.H. Anglin et al. Journal of Business Venturing 33 (2018) 780–812

-0.15

-0.2

Willingness to Fund
-0.25

-0.3

-0.35

-0.4
Low Narcissistic Rhetoric High Narcissistic Rhetoric

Fig. 4. Narcissistic rhetoric and willingness to fund.

asked to rate their willingness to fund the campaign for each scenario. We regressed the narcissistic ratings on the willingness to fund
the campaigns. In addition to the quality controls, we also controlled for entrepreneur demographics and the specific scenarios. The
quadratic term for narcissistic rhetoric is negative and significant (b = −0.05, p < 0.01), thus we found a similar inverted-U shape
relationship between ratings of narcissistic rhetoric and willingness to fund a campaign that we find when using our Kickstarter data.
A plot of this relationship is provided in Fig. 4. We then examined each moderator. However, compared to our content-analytic
examination of crowdfunding campaigns, we did not find support for our moderating hypotheses.

6. Post hoc analyses

6.1. Creating a narcissism index

While our work focuses on displays of narcissism through the use of narcissistic rhetoric, narcissistic displays may take other
forms. Indeed, past work examining unobtrusive measures of narcissism have examined aspects of personal pictures and social media
use in addition to examining the use of language (e.g., Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2011). In this post hoc, we build on this work to
construct a narcissism index representative of multiple displays of narcissism.
We examine five additional measures used to assess narcissism in management where parallels are possible in crowdfunding
campaigns. A number of studies in management have examined narcissism by measuring the prominence (i.e., size) of the CEO's
photograph in a company's annual report (e.g., Patel and Cooper, 2014; Petrenko et al., 2016). While the size of photographs is
restricted on Kickstarter's platform, to parallel this approach in crowdfunding campaigns, we examine (1) the number of personal
pictures used in the campaign and (2) the number of videos that include the entrepreneur in the campaign. Studies have also
measured CEO prominence in a company's press releases, noting that narcissistic CEOs insist on promoting themselves through the
media (Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2011). To parallel this approach, we measure (3) the number of links to personal websites (e.g.,
blogs) and social media accounts (e.g., Instagram) in a campaign. Following studies measuring the length of the CEO's Who's Who
Entry (e.g., Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2007; Patel and Cooper, 2014), we measure (4) the length of the entrepreneur's bio linked to
the crowdfunding campaign. Some studies proxy narcissistic behavior by examining the CEO's cash compensation divided by that of
the second-highest paid executive in the firm (e.g., Gerstner et al., 2013). We adapt this sensibility in crowdfunding campaigns by
identifying (5) cases where campaigns include entrepreneur compensation as a part of their campaign goal.
After coding for each measure, we follow the procedure laid out by Chatterjee and Hambrick (2007) in building our index and
conducted an exploratory factor analysis, retaining items with a factor loading above 0.40. Initially, we retained two factors with
personal campaign pictures (loading = 0.56), video presence (loading = 0.60), personal profile length (loading = 0.52), and nar-
cissistic rhetoric (loading = 0.67) loading on one factor (eigenvalue = 1.54) and compensation (loading = 0.59) and social media
(loading = 0.57) on a second factor (eigenvalue = 1.06). We then conducted a parallel analysis to adjust the eigenvalues for sam-
pling bias. The adjusted eigenvalues were 1.48 and 1.01, respectively, suggesting both factors should be retained. Finally, we conduct
a confirmatory analysis. The first factor revealed a good fitting model (chi square = 6.66; RMSEA = 0.04; CFI = 0.98; TLI = 0.95;
SRMR = 0.02). The second factor, however, failed to converge after 100,000 iterations, suggesting a poor fitting model. As such, we
only leverage the first factor made up of personal campaign pictures, video presence, personal profile length, and narcissistic rhetoric.
Using this index, we then retested our hypotheses. We found a curvilinear relationship with the narcissism index and crowd-
funding performance for all three dependent variables as quadratic terms were all negative and significant (funds raised: b = −0.30,
p < 0.01; backers: b = −0.24, p < 0.01; success: b = −0.31, p < 0.05). Plots of these relationships are available upon request.
Through comparison of the log-likelihood statistics we observed that the use of the narcissism index compared to the rhetoric
measure alone provides a small change in improvement in model fit (funds raised: rhetoric log-likelihood = −15,728.87, index log-

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5.2
5
4.8
4.6
4.4

Backers
4.2
4
3.8
3.6
3.4
3.2
L o w N a r c i s s i s t i c Rh e t o r i c H i g h N a rc i s s i s t i c R he t o r i c
High Female, High Racial Minority
High Female, Low Racial Minority
Low Female, High Racial Minority
Low Female, Low Racial Minority

Fig. 5. Moderating influence of racial minority and sex on narcissistic rhetoric and backers relationship.

likelihood = −15,717.27; backers: rhetoric log-likelihood = −8804.91, index log-likelihood = −8795.12; success: rhetoric log-
likelihood = −917.96, index log-likelihood = −908.89). These changes suggest that the use of the index adds additional in-
formation to the models compared to the rhetoric measure, although this additional information is limited.
When examining our moderating hypotheses with the index, we find that Hypothesis 2 remains unsupported. Hypothesis 3
remains supported for the funds raised (b = − 0.99, p < 0.01) and backers (b = −0.41, p < 0.05) models as the quadratic mod-
erating terms are statistically significant. Unlike our original analysis, we did not find support for the success model. For Hypothesis 4,
we find that racial minorities experience lower performance for the number of backers (b = 0.21, p < 0.05), but found no re-
lationship with the other two variables. Overall, the results using the index are consistent with the original analysis for Hypotheses 1
and 2, but while we find support in several cases with respect to Hypotheses 3 and 4, the results for specific dependent variables vary.

6.2. Investigating multiple demographic characteristics

While our main effect was consistent throughout our study, the results from our moderators varied between the Kickstarter versus
experimental settings and between the rhetoric versus index measures. Further, the lack of support for our sex moderator appears
inconsistent with social role theory. These inconsistencies suggest that the impact of sex, LGBTQ, and racial minority and narcissistic
rhetoric on crowdfunding performance is likely more complex than our original arguments suggested. To further explore this
complexity, we examine combinations of our moderators (e.g., racial minority and female) on the narcissistic rhetoric-performance
relationship. The results of our analysis suggest that multiple entrepreneurial characteristics might simultaneously shape the influ-
ence of narcissistic rhetoric on crowdfunding performance.
When examining the moderating influence of being a racial minority and female, we find statistically significant relationships for
the backers model (racial minority × sex × narcissistic rhetoric2 = − 0.03, p < 0.05). Fig. 5 plots this relationship. The graph
suggests that Caucasian males gain the most backers at moderate levels of narcissistic rhetoric and performed the best at high levels of
narcissistic rhetoric. Caucasian females perform best at low levels of narcissistic rhetoric and better than racial minorities at moderate
and high levels of narcissistic rhetoric. Racial minority females experience a gradual decrease in performance as use of narcissistic
rhetoric increases. Finally, racial minority males experience a decrease in performance from low to medium levels of narcissistic
rhetoric, with a slight upward inflection at high levels. However, racial minority males perform the worst in this analysis except at
low levels of narcissistic rhetoric.
When examining the moderating influence of sex and LGBTQ, the funds raised and backers models revealed significant re-
lationships (funds raised, sex × LGBTQ × narcissistic rhetoric2 = −0.34, p < 0.01; backers, sex × LGBTQ × narcissistic
rhetoric2 = −0.20, p < 0.01). Fig. 6A and B provide plots of these relationships. Both plots suggest that male LGBTQ individuals
experience increasing performance when using narcissistic rhetoric, while all others show inverted-U relationships. Female LGBTQ
individuals perform best at moderate levels, but have a lower threshold for using narcissistic rhetoric. Heterosexual males and
females perform better at high levels of narcissistic rhetoric compared to female-LGBTQ individuals. These findings, and the findings
in the previous paragraph, add nuance to our results for Hypothesis 2 that sex differences did not moderate the narcissistic rhetoric-
crowdfunding performance relationship. Sex differences do indeed appear to influence this relationship, but only in the presence of
other entrepreneur characteristics (i.e. racial minority and LGBTQ).

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4.8

4.3

Funds Raised
3.8

3.3

2.8

2.3
Low Narcissistic Rhetoric High Narcissistic Rhetoric

High Female, High LGBTQ

High Female, Low LGBTQ
Low Female, High LGBTQ
Low Female, Low LGBTQ

B 2.5
2.3
2.1
1.9
Backers

1.7
1.5
1.3
1.1
0.9
0.7
Low Narcissistic Rhetoric High Narcissistic Rhetoric
High Female, High LGBTQ
High Female, Low LGBTQ
Low Female, High LGBTQ
Low Female, Low LGBTQ

Fig. 6. Moderating influence of sex and LGBTQ on narcissistic rhetoric for funds raised and backers relationships.

When examining the moderating influence of being a racial minority and LGBTQ, we find statistically relationships for all three
models (funds raised, racial minority x LGBTQ x narcissistic rhetoric2 = − 21.11, p < 0.01; backers, racial
minority × LGBTQ × narcissistic rhetoric2 = −16.28, p < 0.05; success, racial minority x LGBTQ x narcissistic
rhetoric2 = −144.79, p < 0.001). Fig. 7A, B, and C provide plots of these relationships. The funds raised plot suggests that het-
erosexual Caucasians generally perform best at moderate and high levels of narcissistic rhetoric. Caucasian LGBTQ individuals
perform best at low levels of narcissistic rhetoric but generally better than racial minorities overall. Heterosexual racial minorities
experience a negative relationship with performance at low and medium levels of narcissistic rhetoric, but experience a slight
increase in performance at high levels. Although the plots show a small spike in performance at moderate levels, racial minority
LGBTQ individuals perform the worst, with a low threshold for using narcissistic rhetoric. The backers plot reveals the same re-
lationships with one exception: Caucasian LGBTQ individuals perform best at moderate levels of narcissistic rhetoric. The success plot
shows a spike in performance for racial minority LGBTQ individuals, however the threshold for using narcissistic rhetoric is quite
small. Caucasian LGBTQ individuals perform better than non-LGBTQ individuals at moderate levels of narcissistic rhetoric, but
underperform non-LGBTQ individuals at low and high levels. Caucasian heterosexuals outperform racial minority heterosexuals.
Taken as whole, these findings add a caveat to our finding for Hypothesis 3 that LGBTQ individuals accrue greater benefits at
moderate levels of narcissistic rhetoric. Once we factor in race, it appears that this relationship only holds for Caucasian LGBTQ
individuals, while minority LGBTQ individuals experience the worst crowdfunding performance overall.

7. Discussion

Our study robustly demonstrates that displays of narcissism are an important driver of crowdfunding performance. More spe-
cifically, our work indicates that moderate amounts of narcissistic rhetoric enhance crowdfunding performance; however, the impact
of narcissistic rhetoric becomes detrimental to performance when used extensively. These findings add to the small but growing
literature examining the role of narcissism in new venture processes (e.g., Hmieleski and Lerner, 2016; Miller, 2015) – taking a

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A.H. Anglin et al. Journal of Business Venturing 33 (2018) 780–812

A
3.8

3.6

Funds Raised
3.4

3.2

2.8
Low Narcissistic Rhetoric High Narcissistic Rhetoric
High Racial Minority, High LGBTQ
High Racial Minority, Low LGBTQ
Low Racial Minority, High LGBTQ
Low Racial Minority, Low LGBTQ

B 1.6

1.4

1.2
Backers

0.8

0.6

0.4
Low Narcissistic Rhetoric High Narcissistic Rhetoric
High Racial Minority, High LGBTQ
High Racial Minority, Low LGBTQ
Low Racial Minority, High LGBTQ
Low Racial Minority, Low LGBTQ

C 6

4
Success

0
Low Narcissistic Rhetoric High Narcissistic Rhetoric
High Racial Minority, High LGBTQ
High Racial Minority, Low LGBTQ
Low Racial Minority, High LGBTQ
Low Racial Minority, Low LGBTQ
(caption on next page)

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A.H. Anglin et al. Journal of Business Venturing 33 (2018) 780–812

Fig. 7. Moderating influence of racial minority and LGBTQ on narcissistic rhetoric and crowdfunding performance relationships.

critical step forward in teasing out the conditions under which narcissism may be beneficial or harmful to important entrepreneurial
outcomes. By doing so, we also highlight how social role theory is a key theoretical lens that can be leveraged to explain how
stakeholders believe entrepreneurs should behave and how conforming to such behaviors may benefit or harm entrepreneurs.
Our work examining the moderating influence of sex, sexual orientation, and race also illustrates how the impact of narcissistic
rhetoric is shaped by an entrepreneur's adherence to prevailing social roles. These relationships are indicative of the tensions that
occur when individuals simultaneously occupy multiple social roles, which may cause differences in how displays of individual
characteristics are evaluated. For example, our results indicate that individuals who identify as LGBTQ can benefit from using
moderate levels of narcissistic rhetoric, but at both low and high levels of narcissistic rhetoric these advantages disappear. Leadership
scholars have suggested that in order for LGBTQ individuals to be perceived as effective leaders they must develop an ability to
confront social marginalization by actively advocating for their positions (Fassinger et al., 2010; Friend, 1991) and becoming out-
spoken with regards to their behaviors and beliefs (Brown, 1989). Individuals who are unable to adopt such forthright positions are
less likely to be perceived as capable and effective (Fassinger et al., 2010). Accordingly, low levels of narcissistic rhetoric may not
translate into firmly establishing the confident and outspoken position necessary to overcome the biases and social stigmas associated
with being LGBTQ. Thus, at least moderate levels of narcissistic rhetoric within crowdfunding campaigns are essential in order for
entrepreneurs who identify as LGBTQ to reap the potential benefits of narcissistic rhetoric with regards to performance. In addition,
while there is growing social acceptance of the LGBTQ community (Witeck, 2014), considerable social stigmas associated with
identifying as LGBTQ remains (Kelleher, 2009). Further, while some level of narcissism could be viewed as acceptable and expected
(Campbell et al., 2011), high levels of narcissism continue to carry considerable social costs (Crocker and Park, 2004; Hoorens, 2011).
As such, the combined social stigma and marginalization of being perceived as both LGBTQ and highly narcissistic could effectively
eliminate any benefits that might accrue as a result of incorporating too much narcissistic rhetoric into crowdfunding campaigns.
Our study makes an empirical contribution to the narcissism literature by introducing a comprehensive measure of narcissistic
rhetoric. Previous studies utilizing unobtrusive measures of narcissism have leveraged measures such as the size of CEO pictures in
annual reports, defensive statements made by organizational leaders, and the use of first person pronouns (e.g., Chatterjee and
Hambrick, 2007; Iivonen and Moisander, 2015). While these measures are consistent with the concept of narcissism, work in or-
ganizational behavior and psychology has demonstrated that narcissism is a complex construct consisting of seven unique dimensions
(Grijalva et al., 2015a). Thus, there is a need for a more comprehensive approach to measuring narcissism unobtrusively. Our work
leverages the standard for measuring narcissism in psychological self-assessment research, the NPI (Raskin and Terry, 1988), to create
a content analytic measure building from each dimension of narcissism presented by the NPI. Thus, we provide a new, unobtrusive
tool for researchers interested in pursuing work examining narcissism. Consequently, future scholars could leverage our rhetoric
measures in a number of contexts to build knowledge surrounding entrepreneurial phenomena. Further, we build upon work using
unobtrusive measures of narcissism (i.e., size of CEO pictures; e.g., Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2011) to provide preliminary validation
for a narcissism index that could be used in crowdfunding research. While we encourage future work to continue to validate and
refine this index, we provide a foundation for future crowdfunding researchers to capture displays of narcissism through multiple
indicators.
In addition to our three main contributions, our examination of multiple entrepreneur characteristics at once provides deeper
insight into how entrepreneur characteristics facilitate the narcissistic rhetoric-crowdfunding performance relationship. These
findings imply that crowdfunding investors factor in multiple entrepreneur characteristics simultaneously when reacting to the use of
narcissistic rhetoric. For example, consider the influence of sex on the narcissistic rhetoric-crowdfunding performance relationship.
We initially found no differences between males and females when examining the moderating influence of sex – a finding that appears
counter to social role theory (cf. Madera et al., 2009). However, crowdfunding investors have generally shown a preference for
funding female-led ventures (Greenberg and Mollick, 2017), which may provide insight into this result. Thus, despite the social role
expectation that females should behave in a more communal, less agentic manner — characteristics inconsistent with the use of
narcissistic rhetoric, particularly as usage increases — it appears that the preference to fund females overrides this expectation.
However, this relationship changes when we factor in additional demographics. Notably, racial minority females underperform
Caucasian males and females when using narcissistic rhetoric, suggesting that despite a preference for funding females, the role of
racial minority overshadows this preference to some degree. Consistent with the preference for females, we do observe that racial
minority females still outperform racial minority males. From a social role perspective, this finding appears to be again indicative of
the tension that arises from individuals operating in multiple social roles simultaneously. This indicates that while the role of racial
minority is a more salient force in crowdfunding than the role of sex, the role of being a female, combined with the preference for
supporting females, is not entirely forgotten, allowing racial minority females to outperform minority males when using narcissistic
rhetoric.
The relationship between LGBTQ individuals, narcissistic rhetoric, and crowdfunding performance also appears sensitive to
whether the LGBTQ individual is male or female. While LGBTQ females underperform at low and high levels of narcissistic rhetoric,
LGBTQ males increased their performance with the use of narcissistic rhetoric. Given that the use of such rhetoric is likely consistent
with the stereotypes of both males and LGBTQ individuals, it appears that LGBTQ men may benefit greatly from conforming to the
expectations of both social roles. However, in the case of LGBTQ females, although narcissistic rhetoric may aid in overcoming biases
or social stigmas associated with being LGBTQ at moderate levels, deviance from stereotypically feminine gender roles appears to be
penalized at high levels of narcissistic rhetoric. Thus, these individuals do not reap the same benefits as their male counterparts.

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Finally, throughout our study, racial minorities received less benefit from using narcissistic rhetoric than Caucasians, regardless of
whether we considered racial minorities as whole or parsed them out by other demographics (i.e., sex or LGBTQ). Consistent with
past research, the direct effect of racial minority on funding performance was also negative our study (e.g., Younkin and
Kuppuswamy, 2017). Unfortunately, while there have been substantial efforts to reduce the presence of prejudice and discrimination
against racial minority groups over the last several decades, the reality is that racial minority prejudice is still prevalent within our
society (Simpson and Yinger, 1985). From this perspective, racial minorities may be seen as inconsistent with the role of successful
entrepreneurs. However, our findings do reveal one caveat to this conclusion: racial minorities may increase their performance at
high levels of narcissistic rhetoric in some cases. Practically, this might indicate that racial minorities using lower levels of narcissistic
rhetoric are largely ignored, but increasing the use of narcissistic rhetoric may elicit attention of investors. Higher levels of nar-
cissistic rhetoric could be needed to covey the confidence and strength needed for racial minority entrepreneurs to be seen in the role
of a successful entrepreneur. Overall, we strongly encourage further study of the complexities of these relationships in order to gain a
better understanding of the nuances involved with regards to the relationship between race and the crowdfunding process.

7.1. Limitations and future research

Our study focuses on the presence of narcissistic language and its association with crowdfunding performance; however, we do
not directly investigate how narcissism as a personality trait relates to crowdfunding — only how displays of narcissism impact
funding performance. Although narratives have been closely associated with the construction and communication of self-identity
(Alvesson et al., 2008), our understanding of how individual characteristics translate into narrative content within the crowdfunding
context is still rudimentary. Accordingly, future research will need to explicitly examine the mechanisms and relationships linking
narcissistic personality traits and narcissistic rhetoric to further our understanding of how closely related crowdfunding campaigns
(or other texts) are to actual representations of the individuals behind them. This line of research could be extended to a variety of
personality traits, such as psychological capital or the Big Five personality traits (e.g., Yarkoni, 2010). Such research would enable
researchers to parse out how personality traits translate to specific types of rhetoric from attempts to calculatingly manage im-
pressions through language use. Likewise, we do not investigate how our moderating variables (sex, sexual orientation, and racial
minority) influence the level of narcissistic rhetoric within a campaign — only how the presence of these moderators' influence
investor responses to narcissistic rhetoric. For example, females in our sample use slightly more narcissistic rhetoric than males (i.e.,
approximately 0.58 percentage points, p < 0.01). Yet, we do not know if the females in our sample actually are more narcissistic or
if they use more narcissistic language because of a desire to appear confident and accomplished in order to be taken seriously as an
entrepreneur (e.g., Hoyt and Blascovich, 2007). Future research could have male and female entrepreneurs craft crowdfunding
appeals and compare the use of narcissistic rhetoric with personality assessments to uncover why entrepreneurs emphasize certain
types of language in their appeals.
Our study examines how multiple moderators (e.g., racial minority and female) simultaneously shape the relationship between
narcissistic rhetoric and crowdfunding performance, revealing differences in how investors may react to narcissistic rhetoric.
However, it is important to note that entrepreneurs falling into certain combinations of demographics represented only a small
portion of our sample. For example, only fourteen campaigns were founded by females that identified themselves as LGBTQ. As such,
we caution against over generalizing from these results and encourage future research to investigate the influence of multiple de-
mographics, displayed entrepreneur personality characteristics (e.g., narcissism, passion, or psychological capital) and crowdfunding
performance. For example, emotional displays have been shown to boost crowdfunding performance (Davis et al., 2017; Li et al.,
2017). Work in social role theory suggests that females are expected to feel and express emotions (positive or negative) more
intensely than males (Grossman and Wood, 1993). However, African-American females who are too emotional about a particular
cause are, unfortunately, often stereotyped as the ‘angry black woman’, causing others to react negatively to her cause (Harris-Perry,
2011). While emotional displays are beneficial in crowdfunding, perhaps particularly for females who are expected to be more
emotional, it is possible that this line of logic may not hold for African-American females.
Analysis of our narcissistic rhetoric measure, rooted in the seven dimensions of the NPI, revealed a one-factor, five-dimensional
rhetoric measure, with the entitlement and exploitativeness dimensions excluded. Considerable work in psychology has examined the
factor structure and measurement properties of NPI measures, showing that the properties of NPI measures may vary by context or
who is being measured (e.g., Altmann, 2017; Corry et al., 2008; Kubarych et al., 2004). In our case, an explanation for why the
entitlement and exploitativeness dimensions failed to load is that the use of these dimensions was relatively rare in our sample. This
suggests that entrepreneurs are hesitant to outright express their entitlement or willingness to exploit others when crafting appeals,
thus impression management concerns may be influencing the measurement properties of our rhetoric measure. Impression man-
agement concerns are a salient threat to content analysis and self-report measures alike (McKenny et al., 2016). However, impression
management concerns may be less salient when examining other narrative types. For example, some individuals often feel more
comfortable revealing their true thoughts in interview settings when their identity is concealed (Rowley, 2012). In these cases,
individuals may more readily articulate entitlement and exploitativeness dimensions. As such, we encourage future research to
continue to refine and evaluate our rhetoric measures using narratives drawn from multiple contexts to provide more insight into the
measurement properties and factor structure of our measure.
In addition, it is possible that the individual dimensions of narcissistic rhetoric could vary in importance depending on the context
in which the rhetoric is used. As such, future research might build from our work to explore which components are the most
important or most useful across contexts. For instance, when we examine each dimension individually we find the exhibitionism, self-
sufficiency, and vanity dimensions exhibit a similar curvilinear effect as the full measure of narcissism. The influence of the authority

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dimension is curvilinear, but indicative of a positive relationship with diminishing returns. We find no significant independent
relationship for the superiority dimension. Thus, it does not appear any one dimension was driving the relationship between nar-
cissistic rhetoric and crowdfunding performance, although not all dimensions behaved in the same way. Future research might
examine the role of different dimensions of narcissistic rhetoric in socially oriented crowdfunding (e.g. using the Kiva platform)
versus rewards- or equity-based crowdfunding to determine how investors may react differently to each dimension across unique
crowdfunding types.

8. Conclusion

Our study is the first to explore the role of narcissistic rhetoric in entrepreneurial fundraising. For scholars, our study advances
understanding of how narcissistic rhetoric impacts crowdfunding performance using a variety of empirical approaches. From a social
role theory perspective, our work reveals how the impact of such rhetoric may vary in relation to prevailing social roles. For
practitioners, our research suggests that entrepreneurs may benefit from using moderate amounts of narcissistic rhetoric in their
crowdfunding campaigns, but should be careful to use this rhetoric judiciously. Moreover, they should be aware of social biases that
might impact the effectiveness of their message. We hope that these findings and their associated implications lead to further inquiry
regarding the role of narcissism in the new venture process.

Appendix A. Narcissistic rhetoric dictionaries

Dimension Dictionary words

Authority Accomplished, accomplishment, accomplishments, achieved, achievement, achievements, adjudicate,

adjudicated, adjudicates, adjudicating, adjudication, adjudications, adjudicator, adjudicators, adjudicatory,
arbiter, arbiters, authoritarian, authoritarians, authoritative, authoritatively, authorities, authority, avant-
gardist, avant-gardists, bellweather, bellwether, bellwethers, big cheese, big cheeses, biggest fish, biggest frog in
the pond, boss, bossdom, bossed, bosses, bossier, bossiest, bossily, bossiness, bossing, bossman, bossmen, bossy,
captain, captaincies, captaincy, captained, captaining, captains, captainship, captainships, castellan, castellans,
chairladies, chairlady, chairman, chairmaned, chairmanned, chairmanning, chairmans, chairmanship,
chairmanships, chairmen, chairperson, chairpersons, chairwoman, chairwomen, chiefdom, chiefdoms, chiefs,
chieftain, chieftaincies, chieftaincy, chieftains, chieftainship, chieftainships, cognoscente, cognoscenti,
command, commanded, commander, commanders, commandership, commanding, connoisseur, connoisseurs,
control, controllership, controlling, decision-maker, decision-makers, dictator, dictatorial, dictatorially,
dictatorialness, dictators, dictatorship, dictatorships, dictatory, direct, directed, directing, directive, directives,
directivity, director, directorate, directorates, directors, directorship, directorships, dominance, dominant,
dominantly, dominate, dominated, dominates, dominating, domination, dominations, dominator, dominators,
dominion, dominions, doyen, doyenne, doyennes, doyens, enlightened, enlightener, executive, experienced,
expert, expertise, expertly, expertness, experts, famous, forerunner, forerunners, founder, founders, front
runner, front runners, gaffer, gaffers, groundbreaker, groundbreakers, guide, guided, guider, guiders, guides,
guiding, headman, headmen, headwoman, headwomen, hegemon, hegemonic, hegemonical, hegemonies,
hegemony, honorable, honorableness, honored, honoree, honorees, honors, important, in charge, influencer,
innovator, innovators, knew, know, knowing the ropes, knowledge, knowledgeable, knowledgeably,
knowledge, knows the ropes, lead runner, lead runners, leader, leaders, leadership, leading, leads, maestro,
maestros, manage, managed, management, manager, manageress, managerial, managers, managership,
manages, managing, master, masterdom, mastered, masterful, masterfully, masterfulness, masteries, mastering,
masterly, mastermind, masterminded, masterminding, masterminds, masters, mastership, mastery, mogul,
number 1, number one, number ones, old hand, old hands, oversee, overseeing, overseen, overseer, overseers,
overseership, oversees, pacesetter, pacesetters, pacesetting, pioneer, pioneered, pioneering, pioneers, point
man, point men, point woman, point women, predominance, predominancy, predominant, predominantly,
predominate, predominated, predominately, predominates, predominating, predomination, presidencies,
presidency, president, presidential, presidentship, pro, prodigies, prodigious, prodigiously, prodigiousness,
prodigy, proficiency, proficient, proficiently, pundit, punditry, pundits, respected, revered, sage, sagely,
sageness, sager, sages, sagest, spearhead, spearheaded, spearheading, spearheads, superior, superiorities,
superiority, superiorly, supervise, supervised, supervises, supervising, supervision, supervisor, supervisorial,
supervisors, supervisorship, supervisory, supremacy, supreme, trail blazer, trail blazers, trail blazing,
trailblazer, trailblazers, trailblazing, trend-setter, trendsetting, vanguard, vanguards, vaunt-courier, vaunt-
couriers, virtuosas, virtuosi, virtuosities, virtuosity, virtuoso, virtuosos, vision
Superiority a-1, abler, ablest, acuter, acutest, adroiter, adroitest, advantage, advantaged, advantageous, advantages,
advantaging, alertest, ampler, amplest, a-one, apex, apter, aptest, ascendance, ascendancy, ascendant,
ascendence, ascendency, ascendent, auguster, augustest, awesomer, awesomest, best, best-known, bestseller,
bestselling, best-suited, better, better-known, brilliance, brilliancies, brilliancy, brilliant, brilliantly, capabler,

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Dimension Dictionary words

Authority Accomplished, accomplishment, accomplishments, achieved, achievement, achievements, adjudicate,

adjudicated, adjudicates, adjudicating, adjudication, adjudications, adjudicator, adjudicators, adjudicatory,
arbiter, arbiters, authoritarian, authoritarians, authoritative, authoritatively, authorities, authority, avant-
gardist, avant-gardists, bellweather, bellwether, bellwethers, big cheese, big cheeses, biggest fish, biggest frog in
the pond, boss, bossdom, bossed, bosses, bossier, bossiest, bossily, bossiness, bossing, bossman, bossmen, bossy,
captain, captaincies, captaincy, captained, captaining, captains, captainship, captainships, castellan, castellans,
chairladies, chairlady, chairman, chairmaned, chairmanned, chairmanning, chairmans, chairmanship,
chairmanships, chairmen, chairperson, chairpersons, chairwoman, chairwomen, chiefdom, chiefdoms, chiefs,
chieftain, chieftaincies, chieftaincy, chieftains, chieftainship, chieftainships, cognoscente, cognoscenti,
command, commanded, commander, commanders, commandership, commanding, connoisseur, connoisseurs,
control, controllership, controlling, decision-maker, decision-makers, dictator, dictatorial, dictatorially,
dictatorialness, dictators, dictatorship, dictatorships, dictatory, direct, directed, directing, directive, directives,
directivity, director, directorate, directorates, directors, directorship, directorships, dominance, dominant,
dominantly, dominate, dominated, dominates, dominating, domination, dominations, dominator, dominators,
dominion, dominions, doyen, doyenne, doyennes, doyens, enlightened, enlightener, executive, experienced,
expert, expertise, expertly, expertness, experts, famous, forerunner, forerunners, founder, founders, front
runner, front runners, gaffer, gaffers, groundbreaker, groundbreakers, guide, guided, guider, guiders, guides,
guiding, headman, headmen, headwoman, headwomen, hegemon, hegemonic, hegemonical, hegemonies,
hegemony, honorable, honorableness, honored, honoree, honorees, honors, important, in charge, influencer,
innovator, innovators, knew, know, knowing the ropes, knowledge, knowledgeable, knowledgeably,
knowledge, knows the ropes, lead runner, lead runners, leader, leaders, leadership, leading, leads, maestro,
maestros, manage, managed, management, manager, manageress, managerial, managers, managership,
manages, managing, master, masterdom, mastered, masterful, masterfully, masterfulness, masteries, mastering,
masterly, mastermind, masterminded, masterminding, masterminds, masters, mastership, mastery, mogul,
number 1, number one, number ones, old hand, old hands, oversee, overseeing, overseen, overseer, overseers,
overseership, oversees, pacesetter, pacesetters, pacesetting, pioneer, pioneered, pioneering, pioneers, point
man, point men, point woman, point women, predominance, predominancy, predominant, predominantly,
predominate, predominated, predominately, predominates, predominating, predomination, presidencies,
presidency, president, presidential, presidentship, pro, prodigies, prodigious, prodigiously, prodigiousness,
prodigy, proficiency, proficient, proficiently, pundit, punditry, pundits, respected, revered, sage, sagely,
sageness, sager, sages, sagest, spearhead, spearheaded, spearheading, spearheads, superior, superiorities,
superiority, superiorly, supervise, supervised, supervises, supervising, supervision, supervisor, supervisorial,
supervisors, supervisorship, supervisory, supremacy, supreme, trail blazer, trail blazers, trail blazing,
trailblazer, trailblazers, trailblazing, trend-setter, trendsetting, vanguard, vanguards, vaunt-courier, vaunt-
couriers, virtuosas, virtuosi, virtuosities, virtuosity, virtuoso, virtuosos, vision
Superiority a-1, abler, ablest, acuter, acutest, adroiter, adroitest, advantage, advantaged, advantageous, advantages,
advantaging, alertest, ampler, amplest, a-one, apex, apter, aptest, ascendance, ascendancy, ascendant,
ascendence, ascendency, ascendent, auguster, augustest, awesomer, awesomest, best, best-known, bestseller,
bestselling, best-suited, better, better-known, brilliance, brilliancies, brilliancy, brilliant, brilliantly, capabler,
capablest, choicer, choicest, cleverer, cleverest, completest, dandier, dandiest, defter, deftest, deluxe,
distinguished, dominance, dominant, dominate, dominated, dominates, dominating, domination, dominator,
dominators, edgier, edgiest, eminence, eminences, eminencies, eminency, eminent, eminently, enviable, envied,
esteemed, exceptional, exceptionality, exceptionally, exemplar, exemplars, exemplary, extraordinariness,
extraordinary, extremer, extremest, fairer, fairest, famed, famous, faster, fastest, fiercer, fiercest, finer, finest,
first class, first order, first rate, first-class, first-rate, fitter, fittest, foremost, gifted, giftedly, grander, grandest,
greater, greatest, handier, handiest, handsomer, handsomest, healthier, healthiest, high class, high rank, high-
class, higher, higher-up, highest, huger, hugest, immenser, immensest, incomparability, incomparable,
incomparably, inimitable, inimitably, keener, keenest, knowinger, knowingest, lavisher, lavishest, legendary,
loftier, loftiest, matchless, matchlessly, matchlessness, more able, more accomplished, more admirable, more
admired, more advanced, more advantageous, more amazing, more ambitious, more appealing, more astute,
more authentic, more awesome, more beauteous, more beautiful, more beloved, more brainy, more brilliant,
more buzz, more capable, more celebrated, more cerebral, more cognitive, more cohesive, more colorful, more
commendable, more compelling, more competent, more comprehensive, more consequential, more
considerable, more courageous, more coveted, more creative, more creditable, more critical, more cutting-edge,
more dazzling, more deeply, more delicious, more deserving, more desirable, more determined, more dexterous,
more dextrous, more dignified, more discerning, more distinctive, more distinguished, more dominant, more
durable, more dynamic, more educated, more effective, more efficient, more elegant, more elevated, more
eligible, more eminent, more engaging, more enjoyable, more enlightened, more enormous, more epic, more

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capablest, choicer, choicest, cleverer, cleverest, completest, dandier, dandiest, defter, deftest, deluxe,
distinguished, dominance, dominant, dominate, dominated, dominates, dominating, domination, dominator,
dominators, edgier, edgiest, eminence, eminences, eminencies, eminency, eminent, eminently, enviable, envied,
esteemed, exceptional, exceptionality, exceptionally, exemplar, exemplars, exemplary, extraordinariness,
extraordinary, extremer, extremest, fairer, fairest, famed, famous, faster, fastest, fiercer, fiercest, finer, finest,
first class, first order, first rate, first-class, first-rate, fitter, fittest, foremost, gifted, giftedly, grander, grandest,
greater, greatest, handier, handiest, handsomer, handsomest, healthier, healthiest, high class, high rank, high-
class, higher, higher-up, highest, huger, hugest, immenser, immensest, incomparability, incomparable,
incomparably, inimitable, inimitably, keener, keenest, knowinger, knowingest, lavisher, lavishest, legendary,
loftier, loftiest, matchless, matchlessly, matchlessness, more able, more accomplished, more admirable, more
admired, more advanced, more advantageous, more amazing, more ambitious, more appealing, more astute,
more authentic, more awesome, more beauteous, more beautiful, more beloved, more brainy, more brilliant,
more buzz, more capable, more celebrated, more cerebral, more cognitive, more cohesive, more colorful, more
commendable, more compelling, more competent, more comprehensive, more consequential, more
considerable, more courageous, more coveted, more creative, more creditable, more critical, more cutting-edge,
more dazzling, more deeply, more delicious, more deserving, more desirable, more determined, more dexterous,
more dextrous, more dignified, more discerning, more distinctive, more distinguished, more dominant, more
durable, more dynamic, more educated, more effective, more efficient, more elegant, more elevated, more
eligible, more eminent, more engaging, more enjoyable, more enlightened, more enormous, more epic, more
ergonomic, more erudite, more essential, more esteemed, more exalted, more excellent, more exceptional, more
exciting, more exemplary, more exhaustive, more experienced, more expert, more extraordinary, more eye
catching, more famed, more famous, more fantastic, more farsighted, more far-sighted, more fierce, more
flavorful, more flexible, more fresh, more fun, more gifted, more glorious, more gorgeous, more helpful, more
herculean, more heroic, more humongous, more iconic, more illustrious, more important, more incredible, more
ingenious, more innovative, more inspiring, more intellectual, more intelligent, more interesting, more
intimate, more intricate, more inventive, more keen-witted, more knowledgeable, more known, more laudable,
more lauded, more learned, more legit, more lifelike, more luxurious, more magnificent, more majestic, more
marvelous, more massive, more masterful, more meaningful, more meritorious, more momentous, more
monumental, more nimblewitted, more notable, more noteworthy, more observant, more original, more
perceptive, more percipient, more perfect, more pinnacle, more pivotal, more popular, more powerful, more
practical, more praiseworthy, more precious, more precocious, more preeminent, more pristine, more
professional, more proficient, more profound, more prolific, more prominent, more quick-witted, more radiant,
more realistic, more recognizable, more recognized, more reliable, more remarkable, more renowned, more
resourceful, more respectable, more respected, more revered, more rugged, more sagacious, more sapient, more
scholarly, more sensational, more sharp-witted, more significant, more skilled, more skillful, more smashing,
more sought, more spectacular, more splendid, more staggering, more storied, more striking, more stunning,
more stupendous, more successful, more suitable, more suitably, more superior, more superlative, more
supreme, more talented, more thoughtful, more towering, more transcendant, more tremendous, more unique,
more valuable, more versatile, more vital, more watched, more well-read, more wonderful, more worthy, most
able, most accomplished, most admirable, most admired, most advanced, most advantageous, most amazing,
most ambitious, most appealing, most astute, most authentic, most awesome, most beauteous, most beautiful,
most beloved, most brainy, most brilliant, most buzz, most capable, most celebrated, most cerebral, most
cognitive, most cohesive, most colorful, most commendable, most compelling, most competent, most
comprehensive, most consequential, most considerable, most courageous, most coveted, most creative, most
creditable, most critical, most cutting-edge, most dazzling, most deeply, most delicious, most deserving, most
desirable, most determined, most dexterous, most dextrous, most dignified, most discerning, most distinctive,
most distinguished, most dominant, most durable, most dynamic, most educated, most effective, most efficient,
most elegant, most elevated, most eligible, most eminent, most engaging, most enjoyable, most enlightened,
most enormous, most epic, most ergonomic, most erudite, most essential, most esteemed, most exalted, most
excellent, most exceptional, most exciting, most exemplary, most exhaustive, most experienced, most expert,
most extraordinary, most eye catching, most famed, most famous, most fantastic, most farsighted, most far-
sighted, most fierce, most flavorful, most flexible, most fresh, most fun, most generous, most gifted, most
glorious, most gorgeous, most gracious, most helpful, most herculean, most heroic, most humongous, most
iconic, most illustrious, most immersive, most important, most incredible, most influential, most ingenious,
most innovative, most inspiring, most intellectual, most intelligent, most interesting, most intimate, most
intricate, most inventive, most keen-witted, most knowledgeable, most known, most laudable, most lauded,
most learned, most legit, most lifelike, most luxurious, most magnificent, most majestic, most marvelous, most
massive, most masterful, most meaningful, most meritorious, most momentous, most monumental, most
nimblewitted, most notable, most noteworthy, most observant, most original, most perceptive, most percipient,
most perfect, most pinnacle, most pivotal, most popular, most powerful, most practical, most praiseworthy,
most precious, most precocious, most preeminent, most pristine, most professional, most proficient, most

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profound, most prolific, most prominent, most radiant, most realistic, most recognizable, most recognized, most
relaible, most remarkable, most renowned, most resourceful, most respectable, most respected, most revered,
most rugged, most sagacious, most sapient, most scholarly, most sensational, most sharp-witted, most
significant, most skilled, most skillful, most smashing, most sought, most spectacular, most splendid, most
staggering, most storied, most striking, most stunning, most stupendous, most successful, most suitable, most
suitably, most superior, most superlative, most supreme, most sustainable, most talented, most thoughtful, most
towering, most transcendant, most tremendous, most unique, most valuable, most versatile, most vital, most
watched, most well-read, most wonderful, most worthy, nimbler, nimblest, nobler, noblest, number 1, number
one, one better, outdo, outdoer, outdoers, outdoing, outdone, outstanding, outstandingly, outstandingness,
outstrip, outstripped, outstripping, perspicacious, plusher, plushest, posher, poshest, prettier, prettiest,
princelier, princeliest, purer, purest, ranking, rankings, renown, renowned, richer, richest, righter, rightest,
sharper, sharpest, sharp-witted, sheerer, sheerest, shrewder, shrewdest, sounder, soundest, special, standout,
stronger, strongest, sublimer, sublimest, subtler, subtlest, superber, superbest, superior, superiorly, superlative,
superlatively, superlativeness, supreme, supremely, supremeness, supremer, supremest, sweeter, sweetest, toast
of the town, top billing, top shelf, topflight, topful, topfull, topmost, topnotch, top-shelf, utmost, utmosts, vaster,
vastest, wiseliest, wiser, wisest, worthier, worthiest
Exhibitionism a-1, abilities, ability, able, ably, accomplish, accomplished, accomplisher, accomplishers, accomplishes,
accomplishing, accomplishment, accomplishments, achieve, achieves, achieving, achieved, achievement,
achievements, admirable, admiration, admirations, admire, admired, admirer, admirers, admires, admiring,
adorable, adoring, adroit, adroitly, adroitness, advanced, altruist, altruistic, altruistically, altruists, amazing,
ambitious, appealing, apt, aptitude, aptitudes, aptly, aptness, aptnesses, astute, astutely, astuteness, attentive,
attractive, august, augustly, augustness, authentic, award, awards, awesome, awesomely, awesomeness,
awestricken, awestruck, baller, bang-up, beaut, beauteous, beauteously, beauties, beautiful, beautifully, beauts,
beauty, beloved, beneficence, beneficent, beneficently, benevolence, benevolent, benevolently, bold, brainy,
brave, bright, brilliance, brilliancies, brilliancy, brilliant, brilliantly, brilliants, capabilities, capability, capable,
capableness, capably, cat's meow, celebrated, celebrity, celebs, charm, charming, charms, cherished, chivalric,
chivalrous, chivalrously, chivalrousness, clever, cleverly, cleverness, cogent, cohesive, colorful, colossal,
colossally, committed, compelling, competence, competencies, competency, competent, congenial, considerate,
cool, courageous, courteous, coveted, crafty, creative, creditabilities, creditability, creditableness, creditably,
cutting-edge, dandy, darling, dazzle, dazzled, dazzlement, dazzles, dazzling, dazzlingly, dear, deft, deftly,
deftness, delicious, deliciously, deliciousness, delightful, deluxe, devoted, dexterity, dexterous, dexterously,
dexterousness, dextrous, dignification, dignified, diligent, discerning, distinctive, distinguished, divine, driven,
durable, dynamic, educated, efficiencies, efficiency, efficient, efficiently, elegant, eminence, eminencies,
eminency, eminent, eminently, engaging, enjoyable, enlightened, entertaining, epic, ergonomic, erudite,
eruditely, eruditeness, erudition, esteemed, estimable, exalted, excellent, exceptionable, exceptional,
exceptionality, exceptionally, exemplar, exemplars, exemplary, expert, expertise, expertly, expertness, experts,
extraordinary, eye catching, fame, famed, famous, fans, fantastic, far out, farsighted, far-sighted, farsightedly,
farsightedness, fascinating, fearless, fierce, first class, first order, first rate, first-class, first-rate, fresh,
generosities, generosity, generous, generously, generousness, genius, geniuses, geniusness, genuine, gifted,
giftedly, glorious, gloriously, gloriousness, glory, gorgeous, gorgeously, gorgeousness, gracious, graciously,
graciousness, great, greatly, greatness, grit, handily, handiness, handiwork, handsome, handy, heroic, heroical,
heroically, heroicalness, heroics, high rank, honorable, honorableness, honorably, honorable, huge, hugely,
hugeness, humongous, icon, iconic, illustrious, illustriously, illustriousness, immense, immensely, immersive,
important, impressive, incredible, influential, ingenious, ingeniously, ingeniousness, innovative, inspired,
inspiring, intellect, intellects, intellectual, intellectuals, intelligence, intelligent, intelligently, interesting,
intricate, inventive, inventively, inventiveness, keen, keenly, keenness, keen-witted, kind, kindhearted, kind-
hearted, kindheartedly, kindheartedness, knowledgeable, laud, laudability, laudable, laudably, laudatory,
lauded, lauding, lauds, lavish, lavished, lavishment, lavishness, leading, legendary, legit, legitimate, like wow,
limitless, limitlessly, lovely, loving, lucky, luxuriance, luxuriant, luxuriantly, luxuriate, luxuriated, luxuriates,
luxuriating, luxuriation, luxuries, luxurious, luxuriously, luxuriousness, luxury, magnanimity, magnanimous,
magnanimously, magnanimousness, magnificence, magnificent, magnificently, majestic, majestical,
majestically, marvelous, marvelously, marvelousness, master, mastered, masterful, masterfully, masterfulness,
masteries, mastering, mastermind, masterminds, meritorious, meritoriously, meritoriousness, mighty,
miraculous, momentous, momentously, momentousness, monumental, monumentally, nice, nimble,
nimblefingered, nimblefooted, nimbleness, nimblewitted, nimbly, noble, nobleness, nobly, notability, notable,
notably, noteworthily, noteworthiness, noteworthy, number 1, number one, original, originals, out of this
world, outstanding, outstandingly, outstandingness, peerless, peerlessly, perceptive, perceptively,
perceptiveness, perceptivity, percipience, percipient, perfect, perfected, perfecting, perfection, perfectionist,
perfectionists, perfections, perfective, perfectly, perfectness, perfecto, perfectos, perfects, perspicacious,
perspicaciously, perspicaciousness, perspicacity, perspicacy, pinnacle, pioneer, pleasant, pleasing, popular,
popularity, popularly, posh, poshly, poshness, powerful, praiseworthily, praiseworthiness, praiseworthy,

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precious, precocious, precociously, precociousness, precocity, preeminent, premium, pretty, priceless,

princeliness, princely, prioneering, pristine, prodigies, prodigious, prodigiously, prodigiousness, prodigy,
productive, proficiency, proficient, proficiently, profound, profoundly, profoundness, profundity, prolific,
prominence, prominences, prominent, prominently, prosperous, pure, quick-witted, realistic, recognition,
recognizable, recognized, reknowned, reliable, remarkable, remarkableness, renown, renowned, renowns,
reputable, resourceful, resourcefully, resourcefulness, respectable, respected, revered, revolutionary, sagacious,
sagaciously, sagacities, sagacity, sage, sagely, sageness, saintly, self-aware, sensational, sensationally, sharp-
witted, shrewd, shrewdly, shrewdness, skill, skilled, skillful, skillfully, skillfulness, skills, smart, smashing,
smashingly, sought-after, spectacular, splendid, splendidly, splendor, splendorous, splendors, splendrous,
standout, standouts, star, stars, stimulating, storied, strapping, striking, strikingly, strong, stunning, stupendous,
stupendously, success, successful, successfully, super, superb, superbly, superexcellence, superexcellent,
supreme, supremely, supremeness, sweet, talented, talents, thoughtful, tiptop, tip-top, tremendous,
tremendously, tremendousness, trusted, unique, valient, valuable, versatile, versatility, visionaries, visionary,
vital, vivacious, well-read, willpower, wise, wisely, wiseness, witty, wonderful, wonderfully, wonderfulness,
worthily, worthiness, worthy
Vanity Accomplish, achieved, achievement, admirable, admirably, admiration, admirations, admire, admired, admirer,
admirers, admires, admiring, adorable, amazing, awe-inspiring, awesome, baller, beauty, best, better, boast,
boasting, boasts, brag, bragging, brave, brilliance, brilliancies, brilliancy, brilliant, brilliantly, brilliants, buzz,
charm, charms, cool, creative, dazzle, delightful, delightfully, delightfulness, deluxe, elegance, elegances,
elegancies, elegancy, elegant, eleganter, epic, esteemed, estimable, excellent, fantastic, fine, finer, finest,
glorious, gloriously, gloriousness, glory, glorying, gorgeous, gorgeously, gorgeousness, graceful, gracefully,
gracefulness, grand, grander, grandest, grandeur, grandeurs, grandiose, grandiosely, grandioseness, grandiosity,
grandly, grandness, greater, greatest, handsome, handsomely, handsomeness, handsomer, handsomest, i, iconic,
i'd, i'll, i'm, important, impressive, impressively, impressiveness, i've, kinglier, kingliest, kingliness, kingly, laud,
laudability, laudable, laudably, laudatory, lauded, lauding, lauds, lavish, lavished, lavishes, lavishest, lavishing,
lavishly, lavishment, lavishness, legendary, lovely, magnific, magnificence, magnificent, magnificently,
majestic, majestical, majestically, master, me, mighty, my, myself, nobility, noble, nobleness, nobler, noblest,
nobly, nose in the air, our, ours, ourself, ourselves, out of this world, pleasured, popular, popularity, posh,
posher, poshest, poshly, poshness, powerful, praiseworthily, praiseworthiness, praiseworthy, premium, prettier,
prettiest, pretty, pride, prided, prideful, pridefully, prides, priding, princelier, princeliness, princely,
proficiencies, proficiency, proficient, proud, prouder, proudest, proudly, proudness, radiance, radiances,
radiancies, radiancy, radiant, radiantly, radiants, recognition, resplendence, resplendent, resplendently,
revolutionary, righteous, righteously, righteousness, sharp-witted, smart, special, splendid, splendider,
splendidly, splendor, splendorous, splendors, splendrous, stunning, stylish, sublime, sublimed, sublimely,
sublimeness, sublimer, sublimest, success, successful, successfully, sumptuous, sumptuously, sumptuousness,
super, superb, superber, superbly, swag, swank, swanked, swanker, swankest, swankier, swankiest, swankily,
swanking, swanks, swanky, swell, sweller, swellest, talent, talented, talents, unique, us, vaunt, vaunted,
vaunter, vaunters, vauntful, vaunting, vauntingly, vaunts, vaunty, we, wonderful
Self-sufficiency Ability, able, ablebodied, ableness, abler, ablest, ably, accomplishable, accomplished, accomplisher,
accomplishers, accomplishing, accomplishment, accomplishments, accreditation, accredited, achieved,
achievement, achievements, achieving, adept, adepter, adeptest, adeptly, adeptness, adroit, adroiter, adroitest,
adroitly, adroitness, aplomb, apt, apter, aptest, aptitude, aptitudes, aptitudinal, aptly, aptness, aptnesses,
assurance, assured, assuredly, assuredness, autonomic, autonomous, autonomy, boundless, boundlessly,
boundlessness, capabilities, capability, capable, capableness, capably, censureless, certification, certifications,
certified, chartered, competence, competencies, competency, competent, competently, confidence, confident,
confidently, conscientious, conscientiously, conscientiousness, conscionable, control their own destiny, deft,
defter, deftest, deftly, deftness, dependability, dependable, dependableness, dependably, destiny,
determination, determined, determinedly, determinedness, die trying, died trying, dies trying, diligent,
disencumberance, disencumbered, dogged, doggedly, doggedness, driven, efficacious, efficaciously,
efficaciousness, efficacy, emancipate, emancipated, emancipation, empower, empowered, empowering,
empowerment, empowers, enable, enabled, enablement, enabler, enablers, enables, enabling, endurance,
endure, endured, endures, enduring, experience, experienced, experiences, fortitude, fortitudinous, freedom,
freedoms, in my hands, in our hands, indefatigable, indefatigableness, indefatigably, independence,
independent, independently, indestructibility, indestructible, indestructibleness, indestructibly, indomitable,
industrious, keep at, keep going, keep going, keep on, keeping at, keeping going, keeping on, keeps at, keeps
going, keeps on, kept at, kept going, kept on, liberate, liberated, liberating, liberation, liberty, licensed,
limitless, master, masterful, masterfully, masterfulness, masterly, mastery, never-tiring, never-wearying,
perdure, perdured, perduring, perseverance, persevere, persevered, persevering, persist, persisted, persisted,
persistence, persistent, persisting, pertinacious, pertinaciously, pertinacity, powerful, powerfully, powerfulness,
proficiency, proficient, proficiently, relentless, relentlessly, relentlessness, relentlessness, reliable, reliableness,
reliably, resilience, resiliency, resilient, resolute, resolutely, resoluteness, resolve, resolved, resolves, resolving,

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scrappy, sedulity, sedulous, sedulously, sedulousness, self-assurance, self-assured, self-assuring, self-confidence,

self-confident, self-dependence, self-dependent, self-directed, self-directing, self-direction, self-reliance, self-
reliant, self-rule, self-ruling, self-sustaining, single-handed, single-handedly, solo, stalwart, stalwartly,
stalwartness, stamina, stand fast, stand firm, standing fast, standing firm, stands fast, stands firm, steadfast,
steadfast, steadfastly, steadfastness, stood fast, stood firm, take control, tenacious, tenacious, tenaciously,
tenaciousness, tenacity, toughness of mind, unbridled, unburdened, unchecked, uncompromising,
uncompromisingly, uncompromisingness, uncurbed, undeviating, undoubtedly, undoubting, unencumbered,
unfaltering, unfalteringly, unfetter, unfettered, unflagging, unflagging, unflappability, unflappable, unflinching,
unflinchingly, unhampered, unhesitating, unhesitatingly, unimpeded, uninhibited, unregulated, unrelenting,
unrelentingly, unrelentingness, unrepressed, unrestrained, unrestricted, unshackle, unshackled, unshakable,
unshakablely, unshakeable, unshaken, unshaking, unstoppable, unstopping, unsuppressed, unswervable,
unswerved, unswerving, unswervingly, unswervingness, untiring, untrammeled, unwavered, unwavering,
unwaveringly, unweariedness, unyielding, unyieldingly, unyieldingness, willpower, zeal, zealous, zealously,
zealousness
Entitlement Arrogant, arrogance, big-headed, boastful, boast, boasts, boasted, boasting, bumptious, chosen one, conceit,
conceited, conceitful, egocentric, egotistical, full of themselves, greedy, haughty, high and mighty, high horse,
imperious, megalomania, meglomaniac, overweening, self-centered, self-important, snotty, stuck-up, superior,
superiority, uppity, heritage, greed, birthright
Exploitativeness Bluff, bluffed, bluffing, bluffs, bluff, bluffed, bribe, bribed, bribes, bribing, bribe, bribed, cheat, cheater,
cheating, cheats, chicanery, cheat, coax, coaxed, coaxing, coax, con, conned, conning, connived, conniving,
cons, conned, conning, contrived, contrives, contriving, contrived, corrupt, corrupted, corrupting, corruption,
counterfeit, counterfeited, counterfeiting, craftily, crafty, crooked, deceit, deceitful, deceitfully, deception,
deceptive, devious, deviousness, dishonest, dishonestly, dishonesty, dishonest, dupe, duped, dupes, duping,
dupe, duplicitous, duplicity, exploit, exploitation, exploited, exploiting, exploits, fake, faked, fakes, faking, fake,
feign, feigned, feigning, feigns, foist, foisted, foisting, foists, foist, force, forced, forceful, forces, forcing, force,
fraud, guile, guileful, heist, lie, lied, lying, manipulate, manipulated, manipulates, manipulating, manipulation,
manipulate, manipulated, mislead, misleading, misled, misrepresentation, misrepresentations, misrepresented,
ploy, ploys, pretense, propaganda, scam, scammed, scamming, scams, schemed, scheming, seduce, seduced,
seduces, seducing, seduce, sham, shams, shifty, sly, slyly, subjugate, subjugated, subjugates, subjugating,
subjugate, trickery, underhanded, unscrupulous, cheated, coaxes, conspire, conspired, conspiring, conspires,
contrive, corrupts, exploitativeness, heisting, heisted

Appendix B. Sample experimental scenario with manipulations (manipulations are signified by italics)

B.1. Condition: control (no narcissistic rhetoric, no sex/race/sexuality specifications)

Higher Taste is a food truck concept geared toward providing affordable, healthy, nutritious, vegan and vegetarian meals. Gluten
free and nightshade free will be available, and so no more wondering what to cook or having to read through endless blogs and emails
to find that vegan or vegetarian meal. Fun and funky will be our theme and as vegan-vegetarian food (V-V) is our passion we intend to
share that passion through our food. Therefore we are seeking an initial level of funding equal to $15,000 to help establish our new
venture.
We believe in providing the most affordable and healthy options available. No more “but eating a vegan/vegetarian diet is too
expensive”, or “vegan/vegetarian food is so boring”. Higher Taste fully supports those who are doing a beautiful job sharing the
message of plant based foods already and we hope to only grow this option of eating and believing, and offer delicious vegan and
vegetarian food to all of our community.

B.2. Condition: narcissistic rhetoric included

Higher Taste is a food truck concept geared toward providing affordable, healthy, nutritious, vegan and vegetarian meals. Gluten
free and nightshade free will be available, and so no more wondering what to cook or having to read through endless blogs and emails
to find that vegan or vegetarian meal. Fun and funky will be our theme and as vegan-vegetarian food (V-V) is our passion we intend to
share that passion through our food. Therefore we are seeking an initial level of funding equal to $15,000 to help establish our new
venture.
We believe in providing the most affordable and healthy options available. No more “but eating a vegan/vegetarian diet is too
expensive”, or “vegan/vegetarian food is so boring”. Higher Taste fully supports those who are doing a beautiful job sharing the
message of plant based foods already and we hope to only grow this option of eating and believing, and offer delicious vegan and
vegetarian food to all of our community.
We subscribe to the belief that vegan and vegetarian lifestyles afford individuals superior mental, physical, and emotional health. As
practicing vegans for over two decades, we have developed a unique expertise in creating excellent vegan and vegetarian meals from the highest

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quality, most sustainable, local ingredients. In a world where health and well-being are at a constant threat from inferior and unhealthy meal
alternatives, we believe that it is our responsibility to offer healthy vegan and vegetarian dining options for a better, healthier future.

B.3. Condition: sex specification included

B.3.1. Male founders

Higher Taste is a food truck concept founded by Michael Smith and Steve McCrane, geared toward providing affordable, healthy,
nutritious, vegan and vegetarian meals. Gluten free and nightshade free will be available, and so no more wondering what to cook or
having to read through endless blogs and emails to find that vegan or vegetarian meal. Fun and funky will be our theme and as vegan-
vegetarian food (V-V) is our passion we intend to share that passion through our food. Therefore we are seeking an initial level of
funding equal to $15,000 to help establish our new venture.
We believe in providing the most affordable and healthy options available. No more “but eating a vegan/vegetarian diet is too
expensive”, or “vegan/vegetarian food is so boring”. Higher Taste fully supports those who are doing a beautiful job sharing the
message of plant based foods already and we hope to only grow this option of eating and believing, and offer delicious vegan and
vegetarian food to all of our community.

B.3.2. Female founders

Higher Taste is a food truck concept founded by Michelle Smith and Sarah McCrane, geared toward providing affordable, healthy,
nutritious, vegan and vegetarian meals. Gluten free and nightshade free will be available, and so no more wondering what to cook or
having to read through endless blogs and emails to find that vegan or vegetarian meal. Fun and funky will be our theme and as vegan-
vegetarian food (V-V) is our passion we intend to share that passion through our food. Therefore we are seeking an initial level of
funding equal to $15,000 to help establish our new venture.
We believe in providing the most affordable and healthy options available. No more “but eating a vegan/vegetarian diet is too
expensive”, or “vegan/vegetarian food is so boring”. Higher Taste fully supports those who are doing a beautiful job sharing the
message of plant based foods already and we hope to only grow this option of eating and believing, and offer delicious vegan and
vegetarian food to all of our community.

B.4. Condition: race specification included

B.4.1. African American founders

Higher Taste is a food truck concept geared toward providing affordable, healthy, nutritious, vegan and vegetarian meals. Gluten
free and nightshade free will be available, and so no more wondering what to cook or having to read through endless blogs and emails
to find that vegan or vegetarian meal. Fun and funky will be our theme and as vegan-vegetarian food (V-V) is our passion we intend to
share that passion through our food. Therefore we are seeking an initial level of funding equal to $15,000 to help establish our new
venture.
We believe in providing the most affordable and healthy options available. No more “but eating a vegan/vegetarian diet is too
expensive”, or “vegan/vegetarian food is so boring”. Higher Taste fully supports those who are doing a beautiful job sharing the
message of plant based foods already and we hope to only grow this option of eating and believing, and offer delicious vegan and
vegetarian food to all of our community.
Additionally, as proud members of the African American community, we support opportunities for minority employment, and will work to
further increase the number of opportunities that we have to offer with regards to new job creation.

B.4.2. Hispanic founders

Higher Taste is a food truck concept geared toward providing affordable, healthy, nutritious, vegan and vegetarian meals. Gluten
free and nightshade free will be available, and so no more wondering what to cook or having to read through endless blogs and emails
to find that vegan or vegetarian meal. Fun and funky will be our theme and as vegan-vegetarian food (V-V) is our passion we intend to
share that passion through our food. Therefore we are seeking an initial level of funding equal to $15,000 to help establish our new
venture.
We believe in providing the most affordable and healthy options available. No more “but eating a vegan/vegetarian diet is too
expensive”, or “vegan/vegetarian food is so boring”. Higher Taste fully supports those who are doing a beautiful job sharing the
message of plant based foods already and we hope to only grow this option of eating and believing, and offer delicious vegan and
vegetarian food to all of our community.
Additionally, as proud members of the Hispanic American community, we support opportunities for minority employment, and will work to
further increase the number of opportunities that we have to offer with regards to new job creation.

B.5. Condition: LGBTQ specification included

Higher Taste is a food truck concept geared toward providing affordable, healthy, nutritious, vegan and vegetarian meals. Gluten
free and nightshade free will be available, and so no more wondering what to cook or having to read through endless blogs and emails
to find that vegan or vegetarian meal. Fun and funky will be our theme and as vegan-vegetarian food (V-V) is our passion we intend to
share that passion through our food. Therefore we are seeking an initial level of funding equal to $15,000 to help establish our new

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venture.
We believe in providing the most affordable and healthy options available. No more “but eating a vegan/vegetarian diet is too
expensive”, or “vegan/vegetarian food is so boring”. Higher Taste fully supports those who are doing a beautiful job sharing the
message of plant based foods already and we hope to only grow this option of eating and believing, and offer delicious vegan and
vegetarian food to all of our community.
Additionally, as proud members of the LGBTQ community, we support opportunities for inclusion and minority employment, and will work
to further increase the number of opportunities that we have to offer with regards to new job creation.

B.6. Condition: narcissistic rhetoric and sex specification included

B.6.1. Male founders

Higher Taste is a food truck concept founded by Michael Smith and Steve McCrane, geared toward providing affordable, healthy,
nutritious, vegan and vegetarian meals. Gluten free and nightshade free will be available, and so no more wondering what to cook or
having to read through endless blogs and emails to find that vegan or vegetarian meal. Fun and funky will be our theme and as vegan-
vegetarian food (V-V) is our passion we intend to share that passion through our food. Therefore we are seeking an initial level of
funding equal to $15,000 to help establish our new venture.
We believe in providing the most affordable and healthy options available. No more “but eating a vegan/vegetarian diet is too
expensive”, or “vegan/vegetarian food is so boring”. Higher Taste fully supports those who are doing a beautiful job sharing the
message of plant based foods already and we hope to only grow this option of eating and believing, and offer delicious vegan and
vegetarian food to all of our community.
We subscribe to the belief that vegan and vegetarian lifestyles afford individuals superior mental, physical, and emotional health. As
practicing vegans for over two decades, we have developed a unique expertise in creating excellent vegan and vegetarian meals from the highest
quality, most sustainable, local ingredients. In a world where health and well-being are at a constant threat from inferior and unhealthy meal
alternatives, we believe that it is our responsibility to offer healthy vegan and vegetarian dining options for a better, healthier future.

B.6.2. Female founders

Higher Taste is a food truck concept founded by Michelle Smith and Sarah McCrane, geared toward providing affordable, healthy,
nutritious, vegan and vegetarian meals. Gluten free and nightshade free will be available, and so no more wondering what to cook or
having to read through endless blogs and emails to find that vegan or vegetarian meal. Fun and funky will be our theme and as vegan-
vegetarian food (V-V) is our passion we intend to share that passion through our food. Therefore we are seeking an initial level of
funding equal to $15,000 to help establish our new venture.
We believe in providing the most affordable and healthy options available. No more “but eating a vegan/vegetarian diet is too
expensive”, or “vegan/vegetarian food is so boring”. Higher Taste fully supports those who are doing a beautiful job sharing the
message of plant based foods already and we hope to only grow this option of eating and believing, and offer delicious vegan and
vegetarian food to all of our community.
We subscribe to the belief that vegan and vegetarian lifestyles afford individuals superior mental, physical, and emotional health. As
practicing vegans for over two decades, we have developed a unique expertise in creating excellent vegan and vegetarian meals from the highest
quality, most sustainable, local ingredients. In a world where health and well-being are at a constant threat from inferior and unhealthy meal
alternatives, we believe that it is our responsibility to offer healthy vegan and vegetarian dining options for a better, healthier future.

B.7. Condition: narcissistic rhetoric and race specification included

B.7.1. African American founders

Higher Taste is a food truck concept geared toward providing affordable, healthy, nutritious, vegan and vegetarian meals. Gluten
free and nightshade free will be available, and so no more wondering what to cook or having to read through endless blogs and emails
to find that vegan or vegetarian meal. Fun and funky will be our theme and as vegan-vegetarian food (V-V) is our passion we intend to
share that passion through our food. Therefore we are seeking an initial level of funding equal to $15,000 to help establish our new
venture.
We believe in providing the most affordable and healthy options available. No more “but eating a vegan/vegetarian diet is too
expensive”, or “vegan/vegetarian food is so boring”. Higher Taste fully supports those who are doing a beautiful job sharing the
message of plant based foods already and we hope to only grow this option of eating and believing, and offer delicious vegan and
vegetarian food to all of our community.
We subscribe to the belief that vegan and vegetarian lifestyles afford individuals superior mental, physical, and emotional health. As
practicing vegans for over two decades, we have developed a unique expertise in creating excellent vegan and vegetarian meals from the highest
quality, most sustainable, local ingredients. In a world where health and well-being are at a constant threat from inferior and unhealthy meal
alternatives, we believe that it is our responsibility to offer healthy vegan and vegetarian dining options for a better, healthier future.
Additionally, as proud members of the African American community, we support opportunities for minority employment, and will work to
further increase the number of opportunities that we have to offer with regards to new job creation.

B.7.2. Hispanic founders

Higher Taste is a food truck concept geared toward providing affordable, healthy, nutritious, vegan and vegetarian meals. Gluten

808
A.H. Anglin et al. Journal of Business Venturing 33 (2018) 780–812

free and nightshade free will be available, and so no more wondering what to cook or having to read through endless blogs and emails
to find that vegan or vegetarian meal. Fun and funky will be our theme and as vegan-vegetarian food (V-V) is our passion we intend to
share that passion through our food. Therefore we are seeking an initial level of funding equal to $15,000 to help establish our new
venture.
We believe in providing the most affordable and healthy options available. No more “but eating a vegan/vegetarian diet is too
expensive”, or “vegan/vegetarian food is so boring”. Higher Taste fully supports those who are doing a beautiful job sharing the
message of plant based foods already and we hope to only grow this option of eating and believing, and offer delicious vegan and
vegetarian food to all of our community.
We subscribe to the belief that vegan and vegetarian lifestyles afford individuals superior mental, physical, and emotional health. As
practicing vegans for over two decades, we have developed a unique expertise in creating excellent vegan and vegetarian meals from the highest
quality, most sustainable, local ingredients. In a world where health and well-being are at a constant threat from inferior and unhealthy meal
alternatives, we believe that it is our responsibility to offer healthy vegan and vegetarian dining options for a better, healthier future.
Additionally, as proud members of the Hispanic American community, we support opportunities for minority employment, and will work to
further increase the number of opportunities that we have to offer.

B.8. Condition: narcissistic rhetoric and LGBTQ specification included

Higher Taste is a food truck concept geared toward providing affordable, healthy, nutritious, vegan and vegetarian meals. Gluten
free and nightshade free will be available, and so no more wondering what to cook or having to read through endless blogs and emails
to find that vegan or vegetarian meal. Fun and funky will be our theme and as vegan-vegetarian food (V-V) is our passion we intend to
share that passion through our food. Therefore we are seeking an initial level of funding equal to $15,000 to help establish our new
venture.
We believe in providing the most affordable and healthy options available. No more “but eating a vegan/vegetarian diet is too
expensive”, or “vegan/vegetarian food is so boring”. Higher Taste fully supports those who are doing a beautiful job sharing the
message of plant based foods already and we hope to only grow this option of eating and believing, and offer delicious vegan and
vegetarian food to all of our community.
We subscribe to the belief that vegan and vegetarian lifestyles afford individuals superior mental, physical, and emotional health. As
practicing vegans for over two decades, we have developed a unique expertise in creating excellent vegan and vegetarian meals from the highest
quality, most sustainable, local ingredients. In a world where health and well-being are at a constant threat from inferior and unhealthy meal
alternatives, we believe that it is our responsibility to offer healthy vegan and vegetarian dining options for a better, healthier future.
Additionally, as proud members of the LGBTQ community, we support opportunities for inclusion and minority employment, and will work
to further increase the number of opportunities that we have to offer with regards to new job creation.

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