Narcissistic people had less warmth toward successful & unsuccessful others; but this reaction was eliminated after controlling for narcissistic people's assumptions that other people are less reactive to success & failure

Why are narcissistic people cold? A cognitive account emphasizing the perceived momentousness of successes and failures. William Hart, Gregory K. Tortoriello, Kyle Richardson. Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 153, January 15 2020, 109596. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109596

Highlights
•    Narcissism related to less self-reported reactivity after successes and failures
•    Narcissism related to rating targets as less reactive after successes and failures
•    Narcissism related to less concern for a target after failures
•    Narcissism related to less happiness for a target after successes

Abstract: It seems generally accepted that people with elevated narcissism levels (“narcissistic people,” for short) are interpersonally colder. Most often, this coldness has been presumed to originate from “dark” mechanisms or deficiencies. We departed from these focal explanations; instead, we tested whether “narcissistic coldness,” defined here as the narcissistic tendency to feel less happy for successful others and less concern for unsuccessful others, could follow from an apparently innocent process. Specifically, we proposed that narcissistic people anticipate that success and failure is generally less momentous and (a) assume others are less affected by most success and failure and (b) often feel less happy for successful others and less concerned for unsuccessful others. Findings across three studies were consistent with these propositions. Narcissistic people anticipated that both the self and others will be less reactive to successes and failures (Studies 1–3); moreover, although narcissistic people indicated less warmth toward successful and unsuccessful others, these relations were eliminated after controlling for narcissistic people's assumptions that other people are less reactive to success and failure (Study 3). Hence, narcissistic coldness could, in part, have its origin in what we believe is reasonable disagreement about the momentous nature of events.

6. General discussion

Why are narcissistic (vs. non-narcissistic) people interpersonally colder? Common explanations allude to the presence of psychopathology (e.g., a mental deficit) or darkness (e.g., extreme selfishness and low concern for others) associated with narcissism. Regardless of whether these explanations have merit, here, we proposed and tested a theory which did not invoke either of these constructs: Narcissistic people consider success and failure as less momentous. This consideration is a subjective, potentially reasonable, personal reaction that apparently manifests in beliefs that others (who succeed and fail) are less reactive and, naturally, less warmth toward these others. The theory is complex enough to unpack into ideas that had, up to this point, yet to be explicitly tested. Findings from three studies supported these ideas.

In Study 1, narcissistic people indicated that the self would be less hedonically affected by success and failure. This finding accords with the extended agency model's (Campbell & Foster, 2007) postulate regarding narcissistic people's habituating to success and failure and, therefore, anticipating successes and failures as more diminutive than non-narcissistic people. It also coincides with findings that narcissism relates to trait-level indicators of indifference such as reduced fear of negative evaluation and reduced need for validation (Hart, Adams et al., 2017; Glover et al., 2012); furthermore, it is consistent with evidence that narcissism relates to reduced self-reported failure reactivity (Tortoriello & Hart, 2018). In Studies 2 and 3, narcissistic people assumed that another person, like the self, would be less hedonically affected by success and failure. We believe that narcissistic people may have projected their own subjective feelings of indifference for success and failure onto others and also felt less warmth toward these people. Also, in Study 3, narcissism was unrelated to outcomes of reduced warmth after accounting for estimates of other's reactivity. In other words, hypothetically, if narcissistic (vs. non-narcissistic) people did not assume others were less reactive, then narcissistic and nonnarcissistic people would be about equally interpersonally warm (i.e., just as happy for successful people and just as concerned for unsuccessful people). Critically, exploratory analyses examining relations between narcissistic facets (EE, GE, LA) and/or processes (admiration and rivalry) with outcomes showed highly similar relations as when using the unidimensional narcissism indicator (the NPI); such consistency suggests our theory is highly relevant to conventional narcissism constructs, generally.

Broadly, the present findings cohere with other work suggesting that socially-undesirable outcomes associated with so-called dark-personality constructs (e.g., narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy; Paulhus & Williams, 2002) may not always be the result of malicious intent or psychopathological deficits; occasionally, apparently “dark” outcomes may reflect reasonable disagreements that people high vs. low in dark personalities can have about social realities. For example, Tortoriello, Hart, and Richardson (2019) connected relations between dark personalities and heightened use of derogatory language to disagreements about human fragility; people high and low in dark personalities acknowledged that derogatory language is psychologically harmful, but people lower in dark personalities perceived the intent of this language as more harmful (i.e., they perceive people as more fragile). Hart, Adams, and Burton (2016) showed that divergences between narcissistic and non-narcissistic people on bragging can be traced, in part, to disagreements about how much other people value agentic traits and respond positively to self-promotion. To be sure, perhaps dark personalities or behavior may sometimes be associated with malevolence, but, other times, the different outcomes associated with these personalities can merely indicate that reasonable people can disagree about social realities (e.g., how reactive is a person?) and, in turn, respond differently. We think this perspective on dark personality is sometimes neglected but could potentially yield novel insights and provide a more well-rounded understanding of people with sociallyundesirable tendencies.

Future research is required to address shortcomings of our studies. First, although the present studies included well-powered samples utilizing both undergraduate (Study 1) and MTurk participants (Studies 2 and 3), with the latter being rather representative of the US population on personality constructs (McCredie & Morey, 2018), it is unclear how our findings may generalize to other sample frames (e.g., clinical samples) and cultures. For example, across both MTurk and college student samples, the vast majority of the participants scored below the midpoint of the NPI (i.e., ‘20’), which limits our capacity to state that our results apply to populations with absolutely-elevated NPI scores. Second, all measures were self-report, which could enable dishonest or inaccurate responding (e.g., social-desirability response biases); this point is a particularly important consideration for our MTurk samples. Indeed, on occasion, computer programs have masqueraded as MTurk “participants” by emitting random responses (Kennedy et al., 2018). Although random responses are unlikely to yield the theoretically-anticipated effects we obtained, they could result in under-estimation of these theoretically-anticipated effects. Future work may strengthen the present findings by utilizing stricter control over this problem (Kennedy et al., 2018); also, future research might consider using observer reports of narcissism and warmth constructs.

Third, it is critical to acknowledge that our findings do not prove the existence of an egocentric process influencing narcissistic coldness. The evidence, gathered over different studies, shows that narcissistic people assume that success and failure will be less momentous for the self and others, and these assumptions made about others relates to reduced warmth toward these others. Although such evidence is arguably important in its own right, the evidence does not definitively prove that the self's anticipated reactions to success and failure are attributed to others. Nonetheless, as we have discussed, egocentric reasoning processes are utilized in mentalizing (Nickerson, 1999), and the use of egocentric reasoning processes were facilitated—if not ensured—by the design of the study materials (e.g., the target being judged was nondescript). That being said, future work is needed to test the role of egocentric reasoning processes. For example, the present relations between narcissism and warmth should be diminished somewhat if narcissistic and non-narcissistic people were forced, via an experimental manipulation, to agree on the target's reactions to success or failure. Fourth, it is too early to claim that the present data are of practical significance. The present work was designed to validate a theoretical statement, but future work is needed to examine the theory's practical significance and scope. Features of the situation might exert such strong reactions on warmth reactions that beliefs about others' reactivity are rendered moot. For example, beliefs about a target's anticipated reactivity might be less relevant to predicting warmth when this target is a bitter enemy (vs. casual acquaintance).

In closing, narcissism is considered part of a constellation of personalities that are presumed to represent the human propensity for malevolence (Paulhus & Williams, 2002); obviously, the present study cannot settle whether narcissistic people are malevolent or simply misunderstood, but it could suggest a rather innocent explanation for some instances of narcissistic coldness.