pure.roehampton.ac.uk · web viewnarcissists demonstrate heightened responsivity to negative...

REVISITING AND REVISING THE MASK MODEL OF NARCISSISM 1

Narcissism and Heightened Responsivity to Negative Stimuli:

Evidence for Underlying Fragility or Underlying Robustness?

Mark Hardaker

Roehampton University

Constantine Sedikides

University of Southampton

Elias Tsakanikos

Roehampton University

Word Count: TBD

Corresponding author: Elias Tsakanikos, Department of Psychology, Roehampton

University, Whitelands College, Holybourne Avenue, London, SW15 4JD, UK; e-mail:

[email protected]


Abstract

Narcissists demonstrate heightened responsivity to negative stimuli. This pattern may reflect

self-protective motivation due to their alleged fragility. In Experiments 1A and 1B (ns = 117

and 85, respectively), participants varying on narcissism and (as, a control, explicit self-

esteem) were individually tested on a computerized task. Narcissists (relative to non-

narcissists) were faster at detecting negative, but not positive, words independently of level of

self-esteem. In Experiment 2, participants (n = 186) were assigned either to an affirmation or

control condition, and then completed the same computerized task. Across the board,

narcissists (independently of self-esteem) were faster in detecting negative words. However,

narcissists demonstrated heightened responsivity to self-threatening stimuli, independently of

affirmation. Overall, although faster reaction times may indicate higher vigilance among

narcissists, this vigilance is not symptomatic of inner fragility. Overall, narcissists’

heightened responsivity to negative words is most likely not an indication of a defensive

motivational style related to a fragile self-view, but rather evidence of an efficient self-

protective system.

Keywords: attentional bias; narcissism; self-affirmation; self-view


Narcissism and Heightened Responsivity to Negative Stimuli:

Evidence for Underlying Fragility or Underlying Robustness?

Agentic (also referred to as grandiose) narcissism involves a self-lionizing, entitled,

vain, feisty, and conniving interpersonal orientation. It also involves seeking approval from

others, but also antagonizing them, if not denigrating them or quarrelling with them, when

approval is not granted (Morf, Horvath, &Torchetti, 2011; Thomaes, Brummelman,

Sedikides, 2018).

The Paradox

The paradox of having an unduly high opinion of one’s self while being contingent on

social approbation and hyper-reactive to criticism or emotionally labile (i.e., inordinately

affected by adversity) has not escaped theoretical attention. Early psychoanalysts were

fascinated by it (Freud, 1914/1957; Kernberg, 1975; Kohut, 1966), and so were personality

theorists (Cattell, 1957; Murray, 1938; Westen, 1990). This paradox has not eschewed

empirical scrutiny either.

To be specific, the paradox has been documented in three lines of research comparing

narcissists to their less narcissistic counterparts. First, narcissists display higher variability in

daily affect or affect intensity as well as self-esteem, especially in response to dissatisfying

(than satisfying) life events that involve achievement (Bogart, Benotsch, & Pavlovic, 2004;

Emmons, 1987; Rhodewalt, Madrian, & Cheney, 1988; Zeigler-Hill, 2006; Zeigler-Hill,

Myers, & Clark, 2010; but see Webster, Kirkpatrick, Nezlek, Smith, & Paddock, 2007).

Second, narcissists show greater changes in anger, anxiety, hostility, aggression, and self-

esteem, especially in response to failure (than success) feedback (Besser & Zeigler-Hill, 2010; Bushman & Baumeister, 1998; Konrath, Bushman, & Campbell, 2006; Rhodewalt & Morf, 1998; Twenge & Campbell, 2003; Zuckerman &

O’Loughlin, 2009). Finally, narcissists, exhibit physiological reactivity—as indicated by cortisol and alpha-amylase—to daily emotionally distressing events (Cheng, Tracy, & Miller, 20131), as well as physiological reactivity—as indicated by cardiovascular indices and cortisol levels—to laboratory


induced stress (i.e., the Trier Social Stress Test; Edelstein, Yim, & Quas, 2010; Kelsey, Ornduff, McCann, & Reiff, 2001; Sommer, Kirkland, Newman, Estrella, & Andreassi, 2009).Interpreting the Paradox: Narcissistic Fragility and the Mask Model

Psychodynamic theorists offered an interpretation of the paradox. They attributed it to

the shaky foundations of the narcissistic self-concept or self-esteem (Freud, 1914/1957;

Kernberg, 1975; Kohut, 1966; Westen, 1990), a theoretical statement known as the mask

model of narcissism. Narcissists, according to this statement, have a soft core. As such,

perceived self-threat will be likely to perturb their already fragile self. Sensing their

insecurity, narcissists will be on alert for self-threatening stimuli, detecting them

expeditiously. Their quick responses (i.e., reaction times) to perceived threat, then, is

indicative of defensiveness or self-protection. However, although narcissists will be initially

hyper-vigilant to self-threatening stimuli, they will subsequently inhibit or mask their

vigilance and, by correspondence, brittleness. By doing so, they will manage to preserve their

steely exterior: a puffed up persona. Of note, the mask model of narcissism has been

advocated by social/personality psychologists as well (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001; Myers &

Zeigler-Hill, 2012).

Evidence for Narcissistic Fragility and the Mask Model

Indirect evidence for the mask model is found in studies that assessed narcissism in

situ. These studies asked whether narcissists are characterize by relatively high explicit self-

esteem, but relatively low implicit self-esteem. The evidence has been mixed. Some studies

find support for narcissistic fragility (Gregg & Sedikides, 2010; Jordan, Spencer, Zanna,

Hoshino-Browne, & Correll, 2003; Di Pierro, Mattavelli, & Gallucci, 2016; Zeigler-Hill,

2006), but others (Marissen, Brouwer, Hiemstra, Deen, & Franken, 2016; Vater et al., 2013),

including an early meta-analysis (Bosson et al., 2008) do not, regardless of whether they

focus exclusively on the agentic, rather than communal, domain (Campbell, Bosson, Goheen,

Lakey, & Kernis, 2007; Fatfouta & Schröder-Abé, 2018). A reason for this inconclusiveness

may be that explicit and implicit self-esteem are correlated weakly (Hofmann, Gawronski,


Gschwendner, Le, & Schmitt, 2005; Klavina, Schröder-Abé, & Schütz, 2012; Krizan & Suls,

2008).

Direct evidence for the mask model is found in studies that place narcissists under the

influence of self-threatening feedback, especially in the agentic domain. The typical

paradigm involves a sequential priming task followed by a lexical decision task (Horvath &

Morf, 2009). The logic behind these tasks is as follows. Narcissists are assumed to have a

deep-seated sense of insecurity or inadequacy (i.e., worthlessness). If so, they will be vigilant

for self-threat, and, when threatened, will be particularly quick in spotting words that are

likely to expose their insecurity; that is, they will manifest defensiveness or self-protection.

The self-threat is delivered via the priming task: the primes are either menacing or neutral.

Insecurity is assessed via the lexical decision task: participants’ reaction times to a string of

letters (i.e., confirming whether they are words), some of which denote worthlessness and

some not, are recorded.

Let us describe the paradigm and findings in more detail. To begin, participants are

exposed subliminally either to a self-threatening prime (i.e., failure) or a neutral prime (i.e.,

note). Subsequently they decide, as fast as they can, if a string of letters is a word or a non-

word. Some of these words are indicative of worthlessness (e.g., stupid, incompetent,

useless), some are neutral (e.g., glass, diagonal, violet), and some are fillers (all negative;

e.g., nasty). As such, the primes can be congruent with the target word (e.g., failure-stupid) or

incongruent with it (e.g., failure-glass). It is in the case of prime-word congruence that self-

threat is maximized, and it is in this case that reaction times are expected to be fast, as a

signature of defensiveness and, by implication, underlying fragility. Indeed, narcissists show

heightened responsivity to self-threat (prime-word congruency condition). Further, the letter

strings are presented at two stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOA), short (150 ms) and long

(2000 ms). Narcissists demonstrate heightened responsivity to worthlessness words (but not

neutral or filler-negative words) presented after a congruent prime in the short SOA, but not

in the long SOA. Narcissists, then, appear to be hypervigilant for self-threat in their social

environment (i.e., defensiveness or self-protection), but quickly inhibit their responses—


exactly as predicted by the mask model (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001; Kernberg, 1975; Kohut,

1966).

Following the pioneering work of Horvath and Morf (2009), these results have been

replicated both directly (Krusemark, Lee, & Newman, 20152) and conceptually using a

variant of the sequential priming paradigm, the dot probe task (cf. Salemink, Van den Hout,

& Kindt, 2007). In this task, narcissists (compared to non-narcissists) are found to be more

vigilant (i.e., faster at detecting) negative words associated with agency, but not with

communion (Gu, He, & Zhao, 2013; see also: Centifanti, Kimonis, Frick, & Aucoin, 20133).

An Alternative Interpretation: Underlying Robustness?

There is an alternative explanation, though. Although narcissists may manifest

heightened responsivity to negative stimuli, this in itself does not constitute conclusive

evidence for defensiveness or self-protection, and it is not necessarily symptomatic of a shaky

foundation underlying the self-concept or self-esteem. That is, the same pattern would be

expected even if the narcissistic core was hard rather than soft.

Both high and low narcissists would be expected to display an automatic vigilance for

negative information (Hermans, De Houwer, & Eelen, 2001; Pratto & John, 1991; Wentura,

Rothermund, & Bak, 2000), which may entail evolutionary advantages (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, & Vohs, 2001; Sedikides, Skowronski, & Dunbar, 2006). However, this is where feedback processing of highs and lows would begin to diverge. Highs would regard negative (i.e., worthlessness) feedback so contrary to their self-views that they would simply stop …

Brunell & Fisher, 2014; Thomas, Al Hashmi, Cheung, Morgan, & Lyons, 2013

We tested this alternative hypothesis in our current research (Experiment 3), after first

attempting to replicate and extend (Experiment 2) as well as clarify (Experiment 3) the

paradox (Horvath & Morf, 2009; Krusemark, Lee, & Newman, 2015).

Overview


In Experiment 1, we aimed to build on the phenomenon of heightened narcissistic

responsivity to negative stimuli and to extend it.

In Experiment 2, we advanced this literature by using, for the first time, positive

words and primes. We reasoned that heightened narcissistic responsivity would not be

observed under these conditions.

Having replicated, extended, and clarified the phenomenon of heightened narcissistic

responsivity to negative stimuli in Experiments 1-2, we aimed to explain it in Experiment 3.

In particular, we tested the alternative hypothesis that such responsivity is a self-enhancing

strategy as opposed to being symptomatic of defensiveness. We did so by manipulating self-

affirmation. Such a manipulation buffers the integrity of the self-concept, thus lessening the

impact of self-threat (Steele, 1988; Sweeny & Moyer, 2015). For example, a self-affirmation

manipulation curtails defensiveness and aggression in narcissistic youth (Thomaes, Bushman,

de Castro, Cohen, & Denissen, 2009). If so, self-affirmation should attenuate sensitivity to

negative self-evaluative stimuli. WE CAPITALIZED ON THAT … PROVIDE A BRIEF

SUMMARY HERE AND MOVE THE REST TO THE INTRO OF EXP 3. Recent research

demonstrates that increased awareness of priming and self-affirmation may reduce their

effects (Bargh, 2016). For example, Sherman et al. (2009) developed an implicit task to

assess if self-affirmations are most effective when participants are unaware of their influence.

In a series of experiments, the authors showed that increased affirmation awareness was

associated with decreased affirmation effectiveness. They interpreted this effect as showing

that, when people are made aware of a biasing influence, they will try to correct for it; when

people are aware of self-affirmations the process can be undermined (Crocker & Park, 2004).

The authors concluded in favor of the effectiveness of implicit self-affirmation.

In the present research, we examined whether the heightened responsivity to negative

stimuli shown by narcissists is indicative of a defensive motivational style associated with

fragile self-views and underlying feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt or evidence for

individual differences in attentional biases and a psychologically healthy self-enhancing/self-

protective system associated with positive self-views. To do so, we conducted two


experiments in which used semantic priming of positive and negative word stimuli, and an

implicit self-affirmation task.

Note that, in all experiments, we controlled for self-esteem given its known positive

association with narcissism (Brummelman, Gürel, Thomaes, & Sedikides, in press;

Brummelman, Thomaes, & Sedikides, 2016).

Experiment 1

In Experiment 1, we relied on the sequential priming/lexical decision tasks (Horvath

& Morf, 2009; Krusemark et al., 2015), and two SOAs (Perea & Gotor, 1997), to examine

responses to briefly presented words varying in valence (negativity-positivity). We expected

a positive relation between narcissism and reaction times to negative (but not positive) words

(Gu et al., 2013; Horvath & Morf, 2009)..

Method

Participants and design. We tested 117 University of Roehampton students (99

female), ranging in age from 18 to 55 years (M = 23.00, SD = 6.09). The sample consisted of

85 psychology undergraduate students and 38 PhD students. We determined sample size from

comparable research (Horvath & Morf, 2009, Study 1; Krusemark et al., 2015) reporting

effect sizes of 2p = .07 (n = 64) and

2p = .10 (n = 88) respectively. Using these as a guide,

we conducted a G*Power (F test, Linear Multiple Regression Fixed Model, a priori) analysis

(f ² = .14; = .05; β = .95; 2 predictors), which yielded a minimum sample size of 107. To

anticipate attrition, we opted to include 10 additional participants.

The design was a 2 (primes: self-threatening, neutral) x 2 (SOA: short, long) x 3

(words: worthlessness, neutral, filler-negative) within sub-paradigm.

Procedure. We tested participants individually in a small, enclosed cubicle. We

seated them in front of a 21-inch CRT monitor set at an 85 Hertz refresh rate, and gave them

brief verbal instructions regarding the task along with a 1-minute practice trial. Then, we

asked them to complete 384 pseudo-randomized test trials, which were divided into two

blocks of 192 trials. Each trial began with the presentation of a fixation cross, which

remained on the screen for 505 ms. This was immediately followed by (1) a brief flickering


of letters that contained the first mask (KQHYTPDQFPBYL) for 153 ms, (2) one of two

primes (HUMILIATION or NOTE) for 35 ms, and (3) the second mask

(FYVDLTMHQWSPW) for 24 ms. We used sandwich masking to prevent prime afterimages

(Draine & Greenwald, 1998). We asked participants to concentrate on the fixation cross, and

mentioned (ostensibly) that the flickering of letters was due to the program software

randomly selecting either a word or a non-word.

Following the masking procedure, we displayed a blank screen for either 90 ms (114

ms SOA—short) or 176 ms (200 ms SOA—long), and then presented 48 letter strings

(Appendix A). We instructed participants to decide if each letter string was a word or non-

word, and to respond by pressing the appropriate button on a response box. The letter strings

belonged to one of three categories (16 each): worthlessness (e.g., loser, fool, incompetent),

neutral (e.g., follow, lower, usual), and filler-negative (e.g., attack, harm, offensive) which

aimed to distract participants from the worthlessness adjectives. We selected the

worthlessness words from an online thesaurus (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000), selected the

neutral and filler-negative words from the Harvard Word Database list of words, and matched

all words for Soundex using the Litscape online database (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000).

Further, we created 48 orthographically legal non-words by replacing one letter with a vowel

in each word of the worthlessness, neutral, and filler-adjective categories (e.g., loeer, folaow,

aetack), resulting in an equal number of words and non-words (Perea & Gotor, 1997). Also,

we presented all words four times, once for each prime (self-threatening, neutral) and SOA

(short, long) condition. Finally, we gave participants a response window of 1500 ms and

asked them to respond as speedily and accurately as possible; we did not record reaction

times outside the 1500 ms window.

And the end of the procedure, and after probing participants for suspicion (none

expressed it), we asked for completion of two scales. We assessed narcissism with the 40-

item Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI; Raskin & Terry, 1988; alpha= .89, M = 10.40,

SD = 5.46). For each item, participants chose between two statements, a narcissistic one (e.g.,

“I think I am a special person”) and a non-narcissistic one (e.g., “I am no better or worse than


most people”). We assessed self-esteem with the 10-item Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale

(RSES; Rosenberg, 1965; alpha = .91, M = 18.42, SD = 5.53). A sample item is: “I feel that

I’m a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with others” (1 = strongly disagree, 5 =

strongly agree).

Results and Discussion

In Table 1, we display means and standard deviations for reaction times to words

presented after both primes, for both SOAs. In Table 2, we display correlations, means, and

standard deviations for scores on the NPI and RSES, and mean difference scores1 in the

negative attribute word categories.

To examine the extent to which narcissism was associated with reaction time to words

in the worthlessness category at the 114 SOA, we conducted a hierarchical regression

analysis, with self-esteem entered in the first step and narcissism in the second step.

Narcissism, but not self-esteem, predicted reaction time, with higher levels of narcissism

predicting faster reaction times to worthlessness words (Table 3).

Experiment 2

In Experiment 2, we examined the specificity of the effect obtained in Experiment 1.

In particular, we asked whether narcissistic reactivity can also be observed in regards to

positive words, expecting it not to be the case.

Method

Participants. All 85 undergraduate students (79 women) who served as participants

in Experiment 1 also served as participants in Experiment 1. (They had signed up for a

multiple-credit study.) Their age ranging from 18 to 43 years (M = 20.05, SD = 3.01).

Procedure. The procedure was identical to that of Experiment 1, with a positive

prime (SUPERIOR) and positive attribute words (e.g., ATTRACTIVE, CLEVER,

1


EXCEPTIONAL)2 in place of the negative prime and negative attribute words, respectively.3

We used the NPI (= .86, M = 11.21, SD = 6.39) and RSES (= .93, M = 18.53, SD =

6.17) scores that we had recorded in Experiment 1.


In Table 4, we display means and standard deviations of reaction times to words

presented after both primes, for both SOAs. Correlation analysis revealed that there was no

association between narcissism and reaction time to words in the positive attribute word

category at the 114 or the 200 SOA.

In Experiments 1 and 2, we explored early information processing in narcissists for

evidence of heightened responsivity to negative evaluative stimuli. Initially, we examined the

relation between self-esteem and narcissism, and predicted that they would be positively

correlated. Next, we examined early information processing in people with higher narcissism.

In Experiment 1 we predicted that, as level of narcissism increased, reaction times to negative

attribute words would decrease. For Experiment 2 we predicted that, as level of narcissism

increased, reaction times to positive attribute words would decrease.

The results showed a positive correlation between narcissism and self-esteem

(Sedikides et al., 2004). Further, as predicted, the results of Experiment 1 showed there was a

negative relation between narcissism and reaction time to negative attribute words. More

precisely, as levels of narcissism increased reaction times to negative words decreased,

independent of self-esteem. The effect of narcissism was only observable at the early 114 ms

stimulus onset asynchrony. Also, the results of Experiment 2 showed there was no

association between level of self-reported narcissism and positive words. The effect of

narcissism was specific to negative attribute words.

The results of Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrate that narcissists have a heightened

reactivity to worthlessness words, but not positive words, independent of self-esteem and that

2

3


the onset of this sensitivity occurs very early in information processing. Previous research

suggests this heightened reactivity could be indicative of a general defensive style that masks

internal feelings of worthlessness or self-doubt (Gu et al., 2013; Horvath & Morf, 2009).

Experiment 3

To explore this hypothesis further, Experiment 3 examined the effect of an implicit

self-affirmation task (Sherman et al., 2009) on participant performance in the semantic

priming task from Experiment 1. We predicted that for those participants who were self-

affirmed prior to undertaking the same priming task as Experiment 1, the heightened

reactivity to presented negative words demonstrated in Experiment 1 would either be

alleviated, if it reflected a defensive and fragile self-view, or persisted, if it was part of a

healthy self-enhancing system (Critcher & Dunning, 2015; Horvath & Morf, 2009; Sherman

& Cohen, 2002; Sherman et al., 2009; Sherman & Hartson, 2011; Thomaes & Bushman,

2009). Buttressing a positive self-view via self-affirmation is not expected to increase self-

reported self-esteem or narcissism scores, because self-affirmation works by reinforcing a

personally important core value which buffers global self-esteem from ego-threat (Cohen &

Sherman, 2014; Thomaes et al., 2009). Participants were assigned either to the self-

affirmation or control condition, where they completed either a self-affirmation or neutral

exercise, undertook the identical E-Prime based lexical decision task as in Experiment 1, and

completed the NPI and RSES.

Method

Participants. We tested 186 University of Roehampton undergraduate students (161

women) aged between 18 to 48 years (M = 20.69, SD = 4.60). We measured narcissism with

the NPI and measured self-esteem with the RSES, as in Experiments 1-2. We affirmed

participants using values ranking (Allport, Vernon, & Lindzey, 1960) and the sentence

unscrambling task (Sherman et al., 2009).

Procedure. First, we invited participants to complete the affirmation manipulation.

We asked those in the affirmation condition to undertake a pre-test, which required them to

rate the personal importance (value) of each of five topics (arts, politics, religion, social


values, science). We then asked participants to complete a sentence-unscrambling task, which

required them to unscramble 30 sentences by removing one word from a five-word list and

making a grammatically correct sentence with the remainder. For participants in the

affirmation condition, 15 sentences contained words designed to reinforce the highest

personal value topic chosen in their pre-test. Participants in the control condition

unscrambled 30 neutral sentences. We provide three examples from the ‘Arts’ exercise

below:

3. is the magnificent sculpture happy

5. dinner he because makes tomorrow

6. painted masterpiece expensive a she

Next, we immediately invited participants to commence a computer task, which was

identical to that of Experiment 1. Finally, participants filled out the self-report measures.


Table 5 presents a summary of the means and standard deviations of reaction times to

words presented after both primes, for both SOAs in the non-affirmed condition.

Table 6 presents a summary of the means and standard deviations of reaction times to

words presented after the negative prime, for both SOA in the non-affirmed condition.

We present in Table 7 a summary of the correlations between the total scores of the

RSES and the NPI and subscales and the NPI in both conditions.

T-tests revealed no significant differences in reaction time between Experiment 1

participants and Experiment 3 participants in the neutral control condition, at both the 114

and the 200 SOA. We present in Table 8 descriptive statistics and correlations for all the

variables in the Negative Attribute word category of both conditions.

We tested the extent to which narcissism was associated with reaction time to words

in the negative attribute category at the 200 SOA, in the affirmation condition. To that effect,

we conducted a hierarchical regression analysis, with self-esteem entered in the first step and

narcissism in the second step. Narcissism, but not self-esteem, predicted reaction time, with


higher levels of narcissism predicting faster reaction times to words in the negative attribute

category (Table 9).

We wanted to determine if heightened reactivity to negative attributional words would

be alleviated after buttressing participants’ self-views with a self-affirmation delivered

outside of awareness (Sherman et al., 2009). We predicted that there would not be a relation

between self-reported narcissism and reaction time to negative attributional words in the

affirmed condition and secondly, there would be a negative relation between self-reported

narcissism and reaction time to negative attributional words in the non -affirmed condition,

consistent with the results of Experiment 1.

We did not find support for the first prediction. The results of Experiment 3 showed

that, as participants’ level of narcissism increased, their reaction time to negative words

decreased. The self-affirmation intervention did not alleviate heightened reactivity to words

in the negative word category; that is, in the self-affirmed condition, level of self-reported of

narcissism was negatively associated with reaction time to negative words. The higher

participants’ narcissism, the faster they reacted to the presentation of negative words,

independent of self-esteem. However, although the effect of narcissism on reaction time to

negative attributional words was present for self-affirmed participants, it was delayed.

Specifically, we observed that people with higher narcissism who had been self-affirmed

showed a heightened reactivity to negative words, but this was only apparent at the later

200ms stimulus onset asynchrony. There was no evidence of any association between self-

reported narcissism and reaction time to words in any other word categories.

Furthermore, we found support for the second prediction that, in the non-affirmed

condition, there would be a negative relation between self-reported narcissism and reaction

time to negative words. We found that the heightened reactivity to negative words we

observed in Experiment 1 was again present at the early stimulus onset asynchrony for people

with higher narcissism who were not affirmed. Specifically, level of narcissism was

negatively associated with reaction time to negative attribute words in the non-affirmed

condition.


General Discussion

DISCUSS (FROM BOSSON ET AL.): “The links among narcissism, explicit

(deliberate, controllable) self-esteem, and implicit (automatic, uncontrollable) self-esteem are

unclear despite numerous attempts to illuminate these links. Some investigations suggest that

narcissism reflects high explicit self-esteem that masks low implicit self-esteem, but other

investigations fail to replicate this pattern. Here, we place the ‘mask’ model of narcissism in

historical context and review the existing empirical evidence for this model. We then discuss

three possible issues that might shed light on the inconsistent findings that have emerged

from tests of the mask model. These issues include the unreliability of implicit attitude

measures, narcissism’s different associations with agentic versus communal self-views, and

distinctions between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism subtypes. We also summarize

several alternatives to the mask model of narcissism. Throughout, we offer suggestions for

improving the study of narcissism and self-esteem and point to directions for future research

on this topic.”

Experiments 1 and 2 showed a negative association between higher narcissism and

reaction time to negative attributional words, but that this association was not present for

positive words. We think these results are evidence that people with higher narcissism have a

heightened reactivity towards negative attributional words, but not positive attributional

words, and that this reactivity (or sensitivity) occurs very early in their information

processing.

Experiment 3 showed that, after being self-affirmed, people with higher narcissism

exhibited heightened reactivity to negative words similar to people with higher narcissism

who were not self-affirmed. The self-affirmation did not alleviate participants’ sensitivity to

negative information. However, the onset of the sensitivity was delayed. In general,

participants were marginally slower to identify negative stimuli after self-affirmation. The

effect of the self-affirmation was to cause a delay in the onset of sensitivity to negative


attributional stimuli, but the association between higher narcissism and reaction time to

negative attributional words persisted.

Cumulatively, the results indicate that the heightened reactivity to negative

attributional words observed in Experiment 1 is most likely not an indication of fragile self-

esteem. The heightened reactivity demonstrated by people with higher narcissism appears to

be a self-regulatory process that very quickly identifies adverse stimuli, but its purpose is not

to shield a vulnerable self-view. More likely, the heightened reactivity displayed by people

with higher self-reported narcissism in Experiment 1 is evidence of the efficient inhibition of

negative feedback as part of a healthy self-protective system (see Alicke & Sedikides, 2009)

and evidence for the adaptive, dynamic self-regulatory process model of narcissism (Morf &

Rhodewalt, 2001). Previous research that uses indirect methods to determine inherent self-

beliefs by for example Gu et al. (2013) and Krusemark et al. (2015) highlight general

defensive sensitivities and maladaptive behavioural styles. Krusemark et al. (2015) state that

‘trouble disengaging from a negative content may represent a maladaptive tendency that

serves to reinforce negatively based self-views as postulated by the mask model.’ (p. 19).

However, we consider the results of the self-affirmation manipulation show that the self-view

of people with higher self-reported narcissism is more likely positive.

There are a number of limitations to the experimental paradigm that should be

considered when interpreting the findings. An initial limitation concerns the effect of

conceptual differences on the assessment and screening of participants. Though participants

were assessed for self-esteem they were not screened for Narcissistic Personality Disorder or

asked to complete measures of vulnerable narcissism. There is a possibility that participants

who might score highly on measures of vulnerable, but not grandiose narcissism were the

most reactive to negative attributional stimuli (Pincus et al., 2009; Zeigler-Hill & Besser,

2013). The findings of the self-affirmation intervention are not conclusive evidence

(Brummelman et al., 2016). Our results only imply that people with higher narcissism do not

have a vulnerable self-view. Furthermore, we expected the valenced self-enhancing or self-

threatening evaluative primes and word stimuli that we presented to participants to be self-


relevant. Even so, participants may have processed the word stimuli as valenced information

rather than self-relevant. We recommend future replications of the present research modify

the methodology to incorporate self-relevant primes and self-relevant valenced word stimuli,

and screen participants for depression and anxiety (Gollan, et al., 2015; Rothermund et al.,

2016).


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Footnotes1Cheng, Tracy, and Miller (2013) tested only female participants.2Krusemark, Lee, and Newman (2015) tested incarcerated adults, and measured narcissism

with the Narcissistic Personality Inventory—Brief Version (Gentile et al., 2013). Further,

although participants were not diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), they

were assessed for NPD symptoms at a semi-structured interview (First, Gibbon, Spitzer,

Williams, & Benjamin, 1997) carried out by trained research assistants, who calculated NPD

symptoms (range: 1-9). Krusemark et al. remarked (p. 19) that “NPD symptoms revealed

effects that were largely independent of those associated with the grandiose …

dimension[s]”.

3Centifanti, Kimonis, Frick, and Aucoin (2013) tested juvenile delinquents, who were non-

diagnosed for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. The researchers assessed narcissism with a

self-report scale, the Antisocial Process Screening Device (Frick & Hare, 2001).


Experiment 1

Table 1. Summary of the Means and Standard Deviations for Reaction Times to Words

Presented after both Primes.

Negative Prime Neutral Prime

Word

Category

114 SOA M

(SD)

200 SOA M

(SD)

114 SOA M

(SD)

200 SOA M

(SD)

Negative 565.11 (77.02) 554.35 (79.74) 558.07 (77.32) 557.07 (80.86)

Neutral 601.70 (84.23) 595.82 (89.71) 590.91 (85.25) 589.65 (93.48)

Unpleasant 603.43 (81.84) 589.53 (85.57) 581.53 (83.05) 581.62 (81.34)

Non 608.04 (77.11) 602.08 (77.61) 603.36 (74.47) 600.9 (79.30)

Note: N = 117. Negative prime RTs were marginally slower than neutral prime RTs.


Experiment 1

Table 2. Intercorrelations, Means, and Standard Deviations of scores on the NPI and RSES,

and Mean Difference Scores in the Negative Attribute Word Categories

Measure 1 2 3 M SD

1. NPI - 18.42 5.53

2. RSES .21* - 10.4 5.46

3. 114 SOA (ms) -.18* .05 - 6.88 45.79

4. 200 SOA (ms) -.12 -.02 .14 -2.72 46.97

Note: *p < .05. There were no other associations between reaction time means and the

negative, neutral, and no-word categories.


Experiment 1

Table 3. Predictors of Reaction Time to Negative Attribute Words Presented at the 114 SOA

Reaction Time (ms)

Model 2

Variable Model 1 B B 95% CI

Constant -.64 10.64 [-20.08, 41.35]

Self-esteem .41 .76 [-.78, 2.30]

Narcissism -1.70* [-3.26, -.15]

R² .00 .04

F .28 2.50

ΔR² .04

ΔF 4.71*

Note: N = 117. CI = confidence interval. *p < .05.


Experiment 2

Table 4. Summary of the Means and Standard Deviations for Reaction Times to Words

Presented after both Primes

Positive Prime Neutral Prime

Word Category 114 SOA M (SD)

200 SOA M (SD)

114 SOA M (SD)

200 SOA M (SD)

Positive attribute 575.86 (79.35) 571.75 (76.34) 570.70 (72.32) 564.41 (84.36)

Negative 600.70 (82.78) 595.40 (78.74) 588.74 (81.63) 588.31 (86.34)

Neutral 582.81 (81.63) 576.68 (76.69) 573.28 (73.99) 570.93 (80.72)

Non 640.97 (79.92) 631.68 (79.81) 626.76 (82.25) 618.15 (83.34)

Note: N = 85. Negative prime RTs were marginally slower than neutral prime RTs.


Experiment 3

Table 5. Summary of the Means and Standard Deviations of Reaction Times to Words

Presented after both Primes in the Non-Affirmed Condition.



200 SOA M (SD)

114 SOA M (SD)

200 SOA M (SD)

Negative attribute 569.70 (81.77) 564.57 (82.26) 566.18 (78.30) 560.09 (74.67)

Unpleasant 593.68 (81.25) 581.90 (78.80) 586.53 (95.35) 581.68 (81.11)

Neutral 595.93 (90.43) 586.67 (84.46) 588.21 (96.63) 580.22 (73.86)

Non 637.91 (93.28) 628.30 (82.05) 621.35 (92.06) 618.22 (87.79)

Note: n = 92. Negative prime RTs were marginally slower than neutral prime RTs.


Experiment 3

Table 6. Summary of the Means and Standard Deviations of Reaction Times to Words

Presented after both Primes in the Affirmed Condition.



200 SOA M (SD)

114 SOA M (SD)

200 SOA M (SD)

Negative attribute 578.75 (75.04) 576.46 (74.28) 583.65 (78.56) 568.12 (76.00)

Negative 603.30 (81.43) 590.07 (79.87) 596.92 (77.20.) 582.48 (73.15)

Neutral 604.17 (80.54) 598.57 (81.65) 601.21 (89.09) 587.16 (73.34)

Non 647.19 (88.04) 639.73 (86.45) 638.18 (83.16) 623.86 (79.75)

Note: n = 94. Negative prime RTs were marginally slower than neutral prime RTs.


Experiment 3

Table 7. Summary of the Descriptive Statistics and Intercorrelations for All the Variables in

the Negative Word Category of both Conditions

Measure/SOA 1 2 3 M SD α

Non-affirmed condition

1. NPI - 11.4 4.76 - .75

2. RSES .13 - 19.15 5.37 .89 -

3. 114 (ms) -.19* .01 - 3.52 52.94

4. 200 (ms) -.01 -.03 .14 4.48 58.87

Affirmed condition

1. NPI - 11.23 5.82 .88

2. RSES .35** - 19.39 5.44 .89

3. 114 (ms) -.10 -.11 - -4.90 51.20

4. 200 (ms) -.23* -.02 -.12 8.33 54.84

Note: *p < .05, **p < .001


Experiment 3

Table 9. Predictors of Reaction Time (ms) to Negative Attribute Words Presented at the 200

SOA in the Affirmed Condition

Reaction Time

Model 2

Variable Model 1 B B 95% CI

Constant 13.01 22.36 [-19.48, 64.20]

Self-esteem -.24 .66 [-1.52, 2.84]

Narcissism -2.38* [-4.42, -.34]

R² .00 .06

F .05 2.72

ΔR² .06

ΔF 5.39*

Note: n = 94. CI = confidence

interval. *p < .05.

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