Empathy, sex role orientation, and narcissism

Automatic imitation is reduced in narcissists but only in egocentric perspective-takers

Narcissism is a prevalent personality trait associated with low concern for others and high self-focus. Congruently, reduced automatic imitation in narcissists was reported in one study (23 participants), but it was not replicated in another (57 participants). In this study, 100 participants completed the previously used narcissism and automatic imitation measures but here along with a visual perspective-taking task allowing to dissociate 4 profiles of perspective-takers. While we confirmed a non-replication at whole-sample level, we did find a reliable negative association between narcissism and automatic imitation among egocentric perspective-takers, that is, characterized as highly self-centered when tasked to adopt someone else's point of view. Our findings shed a new light on whether narcissistic individuals are less sensitive to others, highlight the importance of considering performance-based individual differences within the narcissistic personality, and revisit the recent claim that automatic imitation poorly relates to social functioning by presenting a theoretical framework that questions the sensitivity of the automatic imitation task.

Narcissism and Anger: Self-Esteem and Contingencies of Self-Worth as Mediating Self-Structures

Theory and research suggest that an internalization of psychological “structure” related to self-esteem may mediate relationships of Maladaptive Narcissism with higher and Adaptive Narcissism with lower Anger. In the present study (N = 623), Self-Esteem and Contingency of Self-Worth Scales served as presumed indices of the presence or absence of structure. Maladaptive Narcissism predicted greater Anger and a relative absence of structure whereas Adaptive Narcissism displayed an opposite pattern of results. Constructs assessing structure partially mediated the Maladaptive Narcissism relationship with greater Anger. Mediation analyses also revealed that structure not only fully mediated the inverse Adaptive Narcissism linkage with Anger, but also suppressed an association with greater Anger that would otherwise have been evident. These data supported the idea that psychological structure related to self-esteem is noteworthy in explaining the implications of narcissism for personality and interpersonal functioning.

Narcissists' social pain seen only in the brain

Narcissism is a complex phenomenon, involving a level of defensive self-enhancement. Narcissists have avoidant attachment styles, maintain distance in relationships and claim not to need others. However, they are especially sensitive to others' evaluations, needing positive reflected appraisals to maintain their inflated self-views, and showing extreme responses (e.g. aggression) when rejected. The current study tested the hypothesis that narcissists also show hypersensitivity in brain systems associated with distress during exclusion. We measured individual differences in narcissism (Narcissistic Personality Inventory) and monitored neural responses to social exclusion (Cyberball). Narcissism was significantly associated with activity in an a priori anatomically defined social pain network (anterior insula, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and subgenual anterior cingulate cortex) during social exclusion. Results suggest hypersensitivity to exclusion in narcissists may be a function of hypersensitivity in brain systems associated with distress, and suggests a potential pathway that connects narcissism to negative consequences for longer-term physical and mental health-findings not apparent with self-report alone.

Empathic concern and perspective taking: linear and quadratic effects of age across the adult life span

OBJECTIVE

We investigated linear and quadratic effects of age on self-reported empathy in three large cross-sectional samples of American adults aged 18-90 years.

METHOD

Participants completed subscales of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1983), allowing us to independently assess an emotional component of empathy ("empathic concern") and a cognitive component of empathy ("perspective taking") across the adult life span.

RESULTS

For both measures and in all three samples, we found evidence for an inverse-U-shaped pattern across age: Middle-aged adults reported higher empathy than both young adults and older adults. We also found a consistent gender difference: Women reported more empathy than men. We did not find systematic differences by ethnicity. However, neither gender nor ethnicity interacted with age effects.

DISCUSSION

We discuss the inverse-U-shaped age pattern, in terms of aging versus cohort influences, and how it complements and extends the existing literature on empathy and age.

Addiction and "Generation Me:" Narcissistic and Prosocial Behaviors of Adolescents with Substance Dependency Disorder in Comparison to Normative Adolescents

The purpose of this study is to explore narcissistic and prosocial behaviors as reported by adolescents with and without substance dependency disorder (SDD). This study employs a quasi-experimental design using SDD adolescents compared with two normative samples of adolescents. In comparison to normative adolescents, adolescents with SDD were strongly distinguished by overt narcissistic behaviors and less monetary giving. Levels of narcissistic and prosocial behaviors among adolescents with SDD suggest a connection between self-centeredness and addiction. Results also suggest volunteerism as a potential option to counter narcissism in substance dependent adolescents.

Changes in dispositional empathy in American college students over time: a meta-analysis

The current study examines changes over time in a commonly used measure of dispositional empathy. A cross-temporal meta-analysis was conducted on 72 samples of American college students who completed at least one of the four subscales (Empathic Concern, Perspective Taking, Fantasy, and Personal Distress) of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) between 1979 and 2009 (total N = 13,737). Overall, the authors found changes in the most prototypically empathic subscales of the IRI: Empathic Concern was most sharply dropping, followed by Perspective Taking. The IRI Fantasy and Personal Distress subscales exhibited no changes over time. Additional analyses found that the declines in Perspective Taking and Empathic Concern are relatively recent phenomena and are most pronounced in samples from after 2000.

Narcissism and depression: MMPI-2 evidence for the continuum hypothesis in clinical samples

According to one hypothesis, self-report measures of narcissism help describe a psychological continuum related to self-esteem. Most of the previous support for this idea appeared in studies of undergraduates responding to the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI; Raskin & Hall, 1981) along with other self-report instruments. In this project, results consistent with the continuum hypothesis were obtained when Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2; Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989) narcissism scales were correlated with depression in adults receiving treatment for alcoholism. Essentially identical outcomes emerged in a second sample of state psychiatric hospital patients. A third study upheld the hypothesis when narcissism scales were correlated with clinical assessments rather than self-reports of depression. None of these findings were easily explained in terms of alternative interpretations of self-reported narcissism, and these data demonstrate that empirical support for the continuum hypothesis was not limited to the NPI, undergraduates, or self-report measures.

Further assessment of the construct validity of four measures of narcissism: replication and extension

CT. The authors build on earlier research by L. S. Mullins and R. E. Kopelman (1988) and R. E. Kopelman and L. S. Mullins (1992) to reexamine the construct validity of four narcissism scales: the Margolis-Thomas Measure of Narcissism (MT; H. D. Margolis & V. A. Thomas, 1980), the Narcissistic Personality Disorder Scale (NPDS; H. U. Ashby, R. R. Lee, & E. H. Duke, 1979), the Narcissism-Hypersensitivity subscale of the MMPI, Scale 5, Masculinity-Femininity (NHMF; K. Serkownek, 1975), and the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI; R. Raskin & C. S. Hall, 1979). The present analysis included the revised NPI and its factors along with four measures of satisfaction and a number of other previously assessed variables. The MT exhibited the strongest validity, correlating positively with conceptually related constructs such as Machiavellianism, nonsignificantly with unrelated measures like the need to achieve, and inversely with all four satisfaction scales. Contrasts between the NPI and NPDS and NHMF seemed to parallel recent differentiations between overt and covert narcissism, but data for the NPI factors suggested instead that the four narcissism scales helped describe a complex psychological continuum related to adjustment.