Narcissistic personality features and social trust

Abstract

Narcissism has been shown to be associated with a lack of trust in others, but little is known about the factors that may play a role in the tendency for narcissistic individuals to mistrust others. The present research examined whether the associations that specific narcissistic personality features had with social trust were mediated by social worldviews. A large study of Iranian community members (N = 3,446; mean age of 34.28 years) revealed that the antagonistic and neurotic aspects of narcissism had negative indirect associations with social trust through the competitive social worldview, whereas the extraverted aspect of narcissism had a positive indirect association with social trust through the competitive social worldview. In addition, the extraverted and neurotic aspects of narcissism had positive indirect associations with social trust through the dangerous social worldview. These results suggest that the extraverted, antagonistic, and neurotic aspects of narcissism diverged in their associations with social trust and that the dangerous and competitive social worldviews played important roles in these associations. Discussion will focus on the implications of these results for understanding the roles that social worldviews play in the connections between narcissism and social trust.