In this study, dot probe tasks were employed to present performance-related or interpersonal-related words paired with neutral words, we examined the attentional bias of narcissists as well as its mechanism. Results showed that the narcissistic individuals demonstrated significant attentional bias for performance words. Specifically, they were highly vigilant to failure words and had difficulty disengaging from success words, and there was no such bias for the category of interpersonal ones. Non-narcissists, on the other hand, exhibited significant difficulty disengaging from negative words, including failure words and rejection words. From this data, it would appear that attentional bias may be a built-in cognitive attribute of narcissism. The limitations of the present study and future research directions are also discussed.
Narcissism has been regarded as a specific personality disorder for a long time: Narcissistic Personality Disorder or NPD (DSM-IV, American Psychiatric Association, 1994). According to the DSM-IV, narcissists are preoccupied with fantasies of success, power, greatness, and brilliance. They live on an interpersonal stage with exhibitionistic behavior and require attention and admiration from others while responding to criticism or threat to self-esteem with feelings of rage, shame, or humiliation. In addition, they display entitlement and expect special treatment from others without the need to reciprocate. They are also apathetic and interpersonally exploitative and tend to have relationships that oscillate between idealization and devaluation. Despite the multifaceted clinical definition of narcissism, researchers in the area of personality and social psychology have proposed a personality dimension labeled ‘normal’ narcissism for nonclinical populations. The social-personality literature conceptualizes narcissism as a trait that is normally distributed in the population and for which there is no qualitative cut-off for elevated narcissism (Foster & Campbell, 2007). Elevated normal narcissism is typically defined as scoring above the mean on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI; Raskin & Terry, 1988). In the present study, narcissism is also referred to a normal personality variable which is measured with the NPI or other similar instruments.
As might be expected, narcissism is an important multi-dimensional construct consisting of grandiosity, self-love and inflated self-view (for reviews see Campbell, Brunell, & Finkel, 2006). Morf and Rhodewalt (2001) suggest that the nature of sub-clinical narcissism are underlying cognitive, social, and affective processes, which is associated with positive attitudes toward the self with regard to agentic traits (e.g., intelligence, attractiveness), whereas they care less about communal traits (e.g., intimacy, caring). Campbell et al. (2006) suggest that the agentic orientation of narcissism is linked to poor relationship functioning, such as low commitment (Campbell & Foster, 2002), high levels of infidelity (Campbell, Foster, & Finkel, 2002), and low emotional intimacy (Foster, Shrira, Campbell, & Loggins, 2003).
Holding that narcissism is associated with the agentic orientation and functions poorly in building relationships, it is important to uncover the roots of these behaviors. One interesting domain that may help explain these behaviors, but receiving very little regard from researchers, is that of social cognition, specifically, attentional bias. Considering the level of interest in this issue, the research at present has focused on attentional bias and the underlying mechanisms of different levels of narcissism to agentic or relationship relevant social information, including performance-related information and interpersonal-related information. It may help clarify a number of issues in the narcissism literature. For instance, conceptualizing narcissism in terms of attentional bias may offer insight into narcissistic behavior patterns. The primary goal of the present research was to empirically demonstrate how narcissism and attentional bias are linked.
The results have shown the possibility of developing computer tasks to measure cognitive responses to performance-related and to interpersonal-related information in order to clarify the attentional mechanisms of narcissists. These findings reinforce the conceptual link in the construct definitions of the narcissistic personality variables and suggest that narcissistic individuals exhibited significant vigilance for failure words and significant difficulty disengaging from success words. Non-narcissists, on the other hand, exhibited significant difficulty disengaging from failure words and rejection words. In addition, these results fit with conceptual and theoretical notions of narcissists that they are invested in enhancing and protecting a view of themselves as powerful, famous and so on. The lack of attentional bias to interpersonal-related information enables narcissistic individuals to function poorly in relationships. These encouraging results now put us one step closer to understanding how the cognitive biases that maintain narcissists might be modified.
