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Narcissists are assumed to lack the motivation and ability to share and understand the mental states of others. Prior empirical research, however, has yielded inconclusive findings and has differed with respect to the specific aspects of narcissism and socioemotional cognition that have been examined. Here, we propose a differentiated facet approach that can be applied across research traditions and that distinguishes between facets of narcissism (agentic vs. antagonistic) on the one hand, and facets of socioemotional cognition ability (SECA; self-perceived vs. actual) on the other. Using five nonclinical samples in two studies (total N = 602), we investigated the effect of facets of grandiose narcissism on aspects of socioemotional cognition across measures of affective and cognitive empathy, Theory of Mind, and emotional intelligence, while also controlling for general reasoning ability. Across both studies, agentic facets of narcissism were found to be positively related to perceived SECA, whereas antagonistic facets of narcissism were found to be negatively related to perceived SECA. However, both narcissism facets were negatively related to actual SECA. Exploratory condition-based regression analyses further showed that agentic narcissists had a higher directed discrepancy between perceived and actual SECA: They self-enhanced their socio-emotional capacities. Implications of these results for the multifaceted theoretical understanding of the narcissism-SECA link are discussed.
Narcissism has traditionally been assessed using explicit measures, yet contemporary measures are limited in their ability to capture people's automatic (i.e., implicit) self-evaluations. Here, we propose the antagonistic narcissism Implicit Association Test (AN-IAT). Three studies (N = 1082) using self-, informant-reports, and other implicit measures tested the psychometric properties of the AN-IAT. The AN-IAT showed high internal consistency and good temporal stability. The measure was positively associated with (antagonistic) narcissism, aggression, and lack of empathy, but unrelated to communal, pathological, and agentic narcissism as well as self-esteem. The AN-IAT predicted self- and informantratings of aggression and empathy beyond self-reports of antagonistic and agentic narcissism, and agreeableness. Together, the antagonistic narcissism IAT is a promising addition to the assessment of narcissism.