Why Narcissism Reduces Distress: The Consequences of Narcissistic Intellectual Self-Confidence.

Maria Leniarska,Marcin Zajenkowski

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.668257

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between grandiose narcissism and the feeling of distress. We referred to the narcissistic admiration and rivalry model. We hypothesized that people with high narcissistic admiration would experience less distress and fear and that intellectual self-confidence would account for this relationship. We examined two dimensions of grandiose narcissism using Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire, self-assessed intelligence, and various aspects of distress in two studies. In Study 1 (N = 170), we assessed distress (with the Dundee Stress State Questionnaire), related to performance in an intelligence test (Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices), and in Study 2 (N = 258) we measured fear related to the COVID-19 pandemic. In both studies, narcissistic admiration was inversely related to distress/fear, and this relationship was fully mediated by self-assessed intelligence. Narcissistic rivalry was unrelated to both distress and self-assessed intelligence. These findings emphasize the importance of self-views related to intelligence for those with high narcissistic admiration. In particular, intellectual self- confidence plays an important role in reducing distress among narcissists.

Highlights

Narcissism has usually been studied in a negative context, such as psychopathology (e.g., Freud, 1914; Kohut, 1966) or in terms of antisocial personality traits (e.g., Paulhus and Williams, 2002)
We examined the association between two aspects of grandiose narcissism and intelligence
The results indicated that narcissistic self-confidence related to intelligence played an important role in regulating negative affect in the context of performing a demanding task

Summary

Introduction

Narcissism has usually been studied in a negative context, such as psychopathology (e.g., Freud, 1914; Kohut, 1966) or in terms of antisocial personality traits (e.g., Paulhus and Williams, 2002). According to a widely accepted distinction, narcissism has two major forms: grandiose and vulnerable (Wink, 1991; Miller et al, 2011; Krizan and Herlache, 2018) Their common core is self-centeredness and a sense of entitlement, but they differ in many respects (Krizan and Herlache, 2018). Grandiose narcissism reflects positive self-esteem, inflated self-views, high approach motivation, social confidence, and the need for admiration (Campbell and Miller, 2011). Another conceptualization distinguishes two dimensions within grandiose narcissism: narcissistic narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry. Both narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry reflect the narcissistic need to sustain grandiose self-views, but they achieve this through different

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Results

Conclusion