A Comprehensive Examination of Narcissists’ Self-Perceived and Actual Socioemotional Cognition Ability

Simon Mota,Steffen Nestler,Michela Schröder-Abé,Stefan C Schmukle,Katharina Geukes,Mitja D Back,Sarah Humberg,Marius Leckelt,Rebecca Schlegel,Brent Donnellan

doi:10.1525/collabra.174

Simon Mota, Steffen Nestler + Show 8 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.174

Copy DOI

Abstract

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.

Highlights

Narcissists are assumed to lack the motivation and ability to share and understand the mental states of others
Correlations between all narcissism and socioemotional cognition ability (SECA) measures applied for further analyses can be found in Table 1
Figure 1: 1-facet structural equation models (A) & (B) and 2-facet structural equation models (C) relating agentic and antagonistic narcissism to perceived socioemotional cognition ability and actual socioemotional cognition ability controlling for general reasoning capacity (i.e., RAVEN)

Summary

Introduction

Narcissists are assumed to lack the motivation and ability to share and understand the mental states of others. 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 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. Research has identified a variety of psychological constructs that each cover aspects of this fundamental capacity, including empathy (Davis, 1994), emotional intelligence (Mayer & Salovey, 1997), and theory of mind (Premack & Woodruff, 1978) As all of these constructs pertain to how individuals capture the mental states of their social counterparts, we refer to them as aspects of socioemotional cognition ability (SECA). We will present an overview of prior research on the relation between narcissism and SECA, followed by a presentation of two differentiations that we deem

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion