Predicting attitudes toward cryptocurrencies and stocks: The divergent roles of narcissism, intelligence and financial literacy

Abstract

Relatively narcissistic people are attracted to cryptocurrencies, though it is unclear whether they are differentially attracted to cryptocurrencies over other investments. Furthermore, theoretically, only narcissistic admiration, rather than narcissistic rivalry, would be expected to associate with attitudes toward cryptocurrencies. Intelligence and financial literacy are also proposed individual difference predictors of attitudes toward investments. Consequently, we administered measures of narcissistic admiration and rivalry, a financial literacy test, and a battery of intelligence tests to a sample of young adults (N = 372). Based on a structural equation model, narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry differentially predicted attitudes toward cryptocurrencies (admiration, positively; rivalry, negatively), but both failed to associate significantly with attitudes toward stocks. Furthermore, financial literacy was a unique, positive predictor of attitudes toward stocks, whereas intelligence was a unique, negative predictor of attitudes toward cryptocurrencies. Our findings support the notion that narcissism is differentially associated with attitudes toward cryptocurrencies, though only narcissistic admiration (positively), consistent with the hypersensitivities to reward theory. Finally, higher levels of intelligence, controlling for financial literacy and narcissism, associated negatively with attitudes toward cryptocurrencies, perhaps due to the influence of scepticism.