Narcissism and big self: Implicit or explicit?

Background and Aim: Narcissism is a personality construct which entails inflated self-views and expectation of admiration. It has been suggested that narcissists' unreasonably high views of themselves is actually a shield to protect their inner fragile self. The distinction between implicit and explicit mental representations in social cognition can be employed to examine this possibility. Methods Participants were ۱۵۲ university students (۶۱.۲.% female, mean age = ۲۱.۹, SD = ۴.۱) who responded to self-esteem Implicit Association Test (IAT), Rosenberg's self-esteem scale, and the Narcissistic Grandiosity and Vulnerability Scale. Results: The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between narcissism and self- esteem. It was hypothesized that higher narcissism is associated with a larger gap between implicit and explicit self-esteem. Building on the grandiosity-vulnerability model of narcissism, it was further predicted that the above hypothesis is especially true for grandiose rather than vulnerable narcissism. Conclusion: Explicit self-esteem was positively correlated with grandiosity, r =.۵۷, p <.۰۰۱, but negatively associated with vulnerability, r = -.۳۹, p <.۰۰۱. Implicit self-esteem was not related to either grandiosity or vulnerability, ps >.۲۰. However, the gap between implicit and explicit self- esteem had a positive relationship to grandiosity, r =.۳۶, p <.۰۰۱, but a negative correlation with vulnerability, r = -۲۱, p <.۰۵. Findings suggest that grandiose and vulnerable narcissism have distinct relationships with explicit self-esteem. This was also true of the implicit-explicit gap in self-esteem. More specifically, the posited inflation of explicit self-esteem compared to implicit self-esteem was characteristic of grandiose but not vulnerable narcissism.

کلیدواژه ها:

narcissism ، self-esteem ، implicit social cognition