Blurring the Dichotomy of Good and Evil: The Idiosyncratic Helping Strategies Associated with Unmitigated‐Agentic and Unmitigated‐Communal Personalities

We theorized that unmitigated‐agentic personality constructs (UAPs)—prioritizing 'getting ahead’ over 'getting along’—and unmitigated‐communal personality constructs (UCPs)—prioritizing getting along over getting ahead—are associated with distinct affect‐regulatory helping strategies. In Study 1 (N = 179), UAPs, on average, related to greater negative‐affect versus positive‐affect induction helping tactics. In two experiments, UAPs, on average, related to a greater likelihood of selecting anger‐inducing versus love‐inducing or sadness‐inducing songs to help a target overcome a breakup (Study 2; N = 313) and greater selection of anger‐inducing and hubris‐inducing messages versus authentic‐pride‐inducing and love‐inducing messages to help a teammate struggling in a game (Study 3; N = 246). UCPs manifested the opposite patterns. Generally, these associations corresponded with helping‐strategy utility beliefs and were robust to moderators of helping target (self or other; Study 2) or altruistic versus selfish motives (Study 3). Study 4 (N = 205) provided some evidence of ecological validity in contexts of recalled everyday helping. Associations between personality constructs and relative helping strategies were about moderate in size (rs ~ .20) across these four studies. Findings suggest that UAPs are associated with helping strategies believed to promote ‘contemptuous’ self‐enhancement relative to ‘innocuous’ self‐enhancement and self‐transcendence, and vice versa for UCPs. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology     

The Grandiose Narcissism Scale: A Global and Facet-Level Measure of Grandiose Narcissism

The Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) is the primary measure of grandiose narcissism (GN) despite possessing numerous limitations. Here we present a new 33-item measure of GN called the Grandiose Narcissism Scale (GNS) that exhibits a reproducible seven-factor structure that maps on to Raskin and Terry’s (1988) seven factor model. GNS subscales exhibit high reliability, with several being substantially more reliable than their NPI counterparts. As a full-scale, the GNS correlates with other variables in a way that is consistent with the theoretical portrait of GN. Additionally, two of the GNS subscales (entitlement, exploitativeness) are shown to uniquely predict independent measures of entitlement and exploitativeness, suggesting good subscale validity. Cumulatively, the GNS represents a viable complement or alternative to the NPI.     

Seeking a Common Framework for Research on Narcissism: An Attempt to Integrate the Different Faces of Narcissism Within the Circumplex of Personality Metatraits

The current paper presents a proposal for integrating different narcissism constructs (grandiose, vulnerable, communal, and collective) within the Circumplex of Personality Metatraits (CPM), an integrative model of personality structure that could also be used to accommodate the narcissism spectrum model. The study was conducted on a community sample (N = 781 adults). The theoretically predicted locations of the different narcissism constructs within the CPM space were empirically verified using the structural summary method. We found that grandiose, vulnerable, and communal narcissism can be meaningfully located within the CPM, while the status of collective narcissism remains unclear. Thus, the CPM can serve as a personality matrix explaining the differences and similarities between the various faces of narcissism. © 2019 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Overconfidently underthinking: narcissism negatively predicts cognitive reflection

Abstract

There exists a large body of work examining individual differences in the propensity to engage in reflective thinking processes. However, there is a distinct lack of empirical research examining the role of dispositional factors in these differences and understanding these associations could provide valuable insight into decision-making. Here, we examine whether individual differences in cognitive reflection are related to narcissism (excessive self-focused attention) and impulsiveness (trait-based lack of inhibitory control). Participants across three studies completed measures of narcissism, impulsiveness and cognitive reflection. Results indicate that grandiose and vulnerable narcissists differ in their performance on problem-solving tasks (i.e., Cognitive Reflection Test [CRT]) and preferences for intuitive thinking, as well as the degree to which they reflect on and understand their own thoughts and enjoy cognitively effortful activities. Additionally, though impulsiveness was significantly related to self-report measures of cognitive reflection (i.e., metacognitive reflection, metacognitive insight, and need for cognition), it showed no association with a behavioural measure of cognitive reflection (i.e., CRT scores). Our results suggest that certain individual differences in dispositional and personality characteristics may play important roles in the extent to which individuals engage in certain forms of reflective thinking.