Telling people they are intelligent correlates with the feeling of narcissistic uniqueness (the feeling of being special, bragging about one's abilities and enjoyment of one's successes)

Telling people they are intelligent correlates with the feeling of narcissistic uniqueness: The influence of IQ feedback on temporary state narcissism. Marcin Zajenkowski, Gilles E. Gignac. Intelligence, Volume 89, November–December 2021, 101595. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2021.101595

Highlights

• We examined whether positive IQ feedback facilitates the expression of narcissism.

• Positive IQ feedback correlated with increased striving for uniqueness.

• IQ feedback influenced self-assessed intelligence.

Abstract: Research indicates that grandiose narcissism is associated positively with self-assessed intelligence (SAI). Furthermore, the direction of possible causation is considered to flow from narcissism to SAI. However, an intriguing question is whether the effect might be reciprocal, that is, whether the belief that one is intelligent facilitates the expression of narcissism. In the current study (N = 364), we investigated this issue by examining how two types of IQ feedback, (1) positive feedback (IQ is above average) and (2) negative feedback (IQ is below average), influenced SAI and a temporary state of narcissistic admiration. Our study revealed that positive IQ feedback correlated with increased people's SAI and one subscale of state narcissistic admiration: striving for uniqueness (i.e., the feeling of being special, bragging about one's abilities and enjoyment of one's successes). By contrast, negative IQ feedback was associated with decreased people's SAI and lower level of state narcissism. We conclude that IQ feedback may shape people's beliefs about their intelligence, and that lay concepts of intelligence might incorporate some narcissistic elements, such as the feeling of being uniquely special.

Keywords: AdmirationIntelligenceIQ feedbackNarcissismState narcissism

6. Discussion

We investigated how the IQ feedback influences the temporary state narcissism. The information that one's intelligence is below average or above average had impact on some aspects of narcissism as well as people's estimation of their cognitive ability. Below we discuss the obtained findings.

Our main hypothesis stated that the level of state narcissism will be larger in the positive IQ feedback group than in the negative IQ feedback group: the hypothesis was only partially supported. The concept of narcissistic admiration that we used in the current research contains three subdimensions: grandiose fantasies, striving for uniqueness and charmingness. Our study revealed that IQ feedback had statistically significant impact only on one of them: striving for uniqueness. Thus, telling people that their IQ is below/above average appears to influence more substantially the affective-motivational aspect of narcissism, rather than the cognitive or behavioural aspects (we can only state that the results for the other two dimensions were non-significant). An important element of narcissistic uniqueness is the feeling of being special, bragging about one's abilities and enjoyment of one's successes (Back et al., 2013). Additionally, the belief that one is extraordinary intelligent might result in perceiving oneself as distinct from others. The need for distinctiveness is regarded as an important motive in narcissism (Freis, 2018). Our finding suggests that the lay concept of (high) intelligence is associated with pleasant feelings that motivate people to action, give them strength and help them to distinguish from others.

This result corroborates previous research showing that SAI is associated with self-confidence (Howard & Cogswell, 2018). Moreover, the approach motivation accompanying SAI might explain the fact that SAI predicts educational achievements beyond objective intelligence (Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2006). On the other hand, viewing one's abilities as low might decrease motivation and, in turn, undermine cognitive performance.

We confirmed our remaining hypotheses. In line with previous research (e.g., Ackerman & Wolman, 2007; Gold & Kuhn, 2017), we found that, in general, people estimated their intelligence lower after completing the IQ test. However, the type of IQ feedback (positive vs. negative) moderated the change of the SAI level. Specifically, telling participants that their intelligence was above average increased SAI, while the exposure to the information that IQ was below average decreased SAI. Thus, people's beliefs about their IQ seem to be sensitive to external information, even if the information is not necessarily accurate. This finding suggests that the feedback people receive about their abilities over the course of life (e.g., from parents, in school) may have important consequences for their intelligence self-views and, possibly, their self-concept. Our last hypothesis that the IQ feedback would have an impact on the perception of intelligence test validity was also supported. Participants perceived the test as more adequate for measuring IQ in the “higher-than-average” group than in the “lower-than-average” group. This implies that the attitude toward IQ testing, might be influenced by previous experience and the feedback one has received about his/her abilities.

We found that the negative IQ feedback had a larger effect on SAI than had the positive feedback. This is in line with some research findings showing that negative feedback might have greater influence on behaviour (e.g., learning, emotional reaction) than positive feedback (Freedberg, Glass, Filoteo, Hazeltine, & Maddox, 2017; Ilies, De Pater, & Judge, 2007). In the case of SAI, the possible explanation might be related to the confirmation bias and the fact that most people are convinced their intelligence is above-average (Zell et al., 2020). Thus, the positive IQ feedback is consistent with people's self-image, whereas the negative IQ feedback is a mismatch in their self-knowledge which leads to stronger psychological reactions.

The current study might have implications for our understanding of the origins of narcissism. Cumulative evidence shows that parents play a substantial role in shaping their children's level of narcissism (Thomaes & Brummelman, 2018). Individual differences in narcissism emerge around the age of 8, when children are able to form global views of themselves (Brummelman et al., 2015). Parents may cultivate narcissism in their children by overvaluing their accomplishments, that is, seeing and treating their children as more special and entitled than others. In one of the largest studies in this area, Brummelman et al. (2015) tested children (7–11 years old) and their parents for a period of 2 years. The results revealed that children's level of narcissism was highly associated with parental overvaluation. However, the study of Brummelman et al. (2015) assessed general beliefs of the parents, for instance, “my child is more special than other children”. In light of our findings, it would be interesting to examine whether narcissism in children is associated with parents overvaluation in more specific domains, such as cognitive ability. We found that the positive IQ feedback increased at least one subdimension of state narcissism. It is possible that a child frequently praised for his/her abilities, especially undeservedly, might develop a stable trait of (grandiose) narcissism. It needs to be acknowledged, however, that this interpretation is rather speculative. In our study we tested how a one-time information influenced state narcissism. In order to examine the development of trait narcissism, a longitudinal study is necessary testing the long-term effects of parents' evaluation of their children.

Our findings also reveal some interesting aspects of intelligence itself. The notion of intelligence is a central concept in modern (especially Western) society, however, people's perception of this construct might substantially differ from the academic definitions (Furnham, 2001). Intelligence is regarded as rather ambiguous attribute and laypersons may assign different meaning to it (Dunning, 2005). We found that the information people receive about their IQ level, after completing an IQ test, had a an impact on at least one dimension of state narcissism. It is possible that the lay concept of intelligence contains some narcissistic elements and the belief that one is smart is inseparably associated with narcissistic feelings of being special and better than others. This interpretation might shed some light on the controversies around the studies on intelligence group differences (e.g., Gottfredson, 1997; Neisser et al., 1996). The controversial debates on this topic might be fuelled by the lay understanding of intelligence. Specifically, members of presumably more intelligent group might provoke members of less intelligent group by manifesting their narcissistic superiority.

Our structural equation model revealed another interesting finding about the association between narcissism and SAI. While the correlation between the narcissism latent variable and pre-feedback SAI was similar across conditions, the magnitude of association between narcissism and post-feedback SAI depended on the feedback type. Specifically, it was substantially higher in the negative feedback condition than in the positive feedback group. Thus, individual differences in narcissism were more important for people's self-estimation in unfavorable situation. This suggests a regulatory role for grandiose narcissism, when faced with ego-threatening information. Perhaps when people received the feedback that their IQ was above average, they thought positively about their cognitive ability, regardless of the narcissism level. However, with respect to the “lower than average IQ” feedback condition, grandiose narcissists might have used self-protective tactics to maintain a positive image of their intelligence. According to many models of narcissism, grandiose narcissists use various intrapersonal strategies for regulating the self to make themselves feel positive (Campbell & Foster, 2007; Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). For instance, they might have blamed situational factors, rather than themselves, for their poor performance (e.g., Rhodewalt & Morf, 1995), by devaluating the idea of psychological testing or thinking that their extraordinary giftedness was not captured by the test they completed. More research is needed to understand the processes underlying narcissists self-regulation in this context.

Finally, we showed that narcissistic admiration might be successfully measured not only as a trait, but also as a temporary state. The state of narcissism has been already examined in previous studies (Giacomin & Jordan, 2018). However, the extant research has focused on the general grandiose narcissism (e.g., using modified instruction of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory; Giacomin & Jordan, 2016) or used adjectives as items to measure temporary state of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism (Edershile et al., 2019). Our research expands these findings by showing that grandiose narcissism's facets might be assessed as a temporary state using the full items of the original Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire. We found that the type of feedback in the content domain of intelligence had a statistically significant impact on one of the admiration's subdimensions: striving for uniqueness. With large sample sizes, and more measures, it remains to be established whether other facets of narcissistic admiration, as well as narcissistic rivalry, might be sensitive to situational factors. Additionally, future studies could examine the influence of the information type on state narcissism. For instance, an intriguing question is whether the IQ-related effect generalizes to other agentic attributes (e.g., leadership, entrepreneurship, sexual potential etc.), or whether positive/negative feedback on communal attributes (e.g., kindness, morality, empathy) has distinct effect on state of grandiose narcissism. Another problem that requires attention relates to the similarities between narcissism and self-esteem. Although both constructs overlap, they also differ substantially with several respects (Brummelman, Gurel, Thomaes, & Sedikides, 2018). Thus, it would be worth investigating how feedback about IQ, and other attributes, affects states of narcissism and self-esteem.

7. Limitations and conclusions

The current study was not free of limitations. First, we used a between-subjects design. Specifically, we compared state narcissism in two groups after the IQ feedback, but we did not control participants' baseline (pre-feedback) state narcissism. We chose the less statistically powerful between-subjects design, because we believe that asking the same, very specific, questions twice, within a short period of time, might have a confounding impact on the (second) measurement. We attempted to deal with the problem of potential differences in the pre-manipulation level of narcissism by measuring trait narcissism. The analysis revealed no significant differences between compared groups. Second, the magnitude of the experimental feedback effect on state narcissism was relatively small (Cohen, 1988). Thus, replication, with a larger sample size, would be useful. Despite the fact that the effect on state narcissism was small, it should be considered potentially important, given that the significant effect was achieved with just one piece of feedback. Further research with multiple occasions of indiscriminate, positive feedback may show a more substantial impact on narcissism. Third, the study was conducted online. It is an open question whether the IQ feedback from an experimenter during face-to-face meeting might have greater impact on the state narcissism and its facets. Nonetheless, the current study's procedure allowed to avoid the effect of experimenter and his or her specific characteristics. Fourth, while we compared people's response to positive and negative feedback about their IQ, we did not include control group with neutral feedback. Future studies could examine this possibility by comparing feedback of different valence (positive, negative) with the situation where participants are told they have average IQ, or receive no feedback at all.

In conclusion, we found that IQ feedback influences people's self-views. Specifically, positive information results in higher estimation of one's intelligence and a higher state of narcissistic uniqueness, while negative information is linked with decreased self-assessed intelligence and lower level of state narcissism. Thus, the external feedback can influence people's beliefs about their intelligence, on the other hand, however, the lay concepts of intelligence might contain some narcissistic elements, such as the feeling of uniqueness.