Self and Interpersonal study of Narcissism (SINA)

Narcissism is of high social relevance, as narcissistic behavior increases in western cultures, and is known to go along with a variety of interpersonal problems. The proposed project Self and Interpersonal study of Narcissism (SINA) aims to study narcissism from the perspectives of personality and clinical psychology. In the nonclinical population, narcissism can manifest in grandiosity or vulnerability. While grandiose narcissism goes along with boldness and assertiveness, vulnerable narcissism reflects self-consciousness and withdrawal. Yet, both share a common core of entitled self-importance. In pathological narcissism, both aspects are thought to converge in co- occurring or in fluctuating states. Yet, besides case studies and observer reports, there is little behavioral evidence on the actual interplay of narcissistic grandiosity and vulnerability in personality functioning. This projects sets out to study narcissistic grandiosity and vulnerability in two central aspects of personality functioning, namely self and interpersonal aspects. The self-aspect will be studied using a laboratory experiment that assesses spontaneous thought content during mind- wandering, which opens a window to personality. We hypothesize that narcissistic grandiosity and vulnerability can be disentangled in the self-relatedness, valence, and time perspective of spontaneous thought. To study the interpersonal aspect, we will investigate the differences in the abilities to share others emotional states (empathy) and take others perspectives (Theory of Mind). We hypothesize that narcissistic grandiosity and vulnerability will go along with deficits in empathy, and pathological narcissism will go along deficits in Theory of Mind. Lastly, we will conjointly study the self and interpersonal aspects in a two-week field study, in which participants report on their spontaneous thought and social interactions via smartphone. This will allow us to investigate the interplay of self and interpersonal functioning in narcissism. We hypothesize, for instance, that the perception of social interactions will lead to alterations in spontaneous thought in narcissism. This research design might enable us to identify switches between states of grandiosity and vulnerability, which has only recently been called for by experts in the field, and can be considered a highly innovative approach to the study of narcissism. The insights from this research will not only help to gain a more nuanced understanding of narcissistic behavior and experience in everyday life, but could also help to offer tailored treatment protocols to patients with narcissistic personality disorder.