The Association Between Vulnerable/Grandiose Narcissism and Emotion Regulation

Summary & key facts

This study tested 60 healthy adults (30 women, 30 men) to see how two types of narcissism — vulnerable and grandiose — relate to emotion regulation. Researchers used questionnaires and a lab task that asked people to either feel naturally or use reappraisal (change how they think) while viewing sad and happy faces. They found no link between either form of narcissism and actual ability to regulate emotions in the task, but vulnerable narcissism was tied to more use of suppression and to higher levels of depression and anhedonia, while grandiose narcissism showed fewer links with those problems.

Key facts:

• The study included 60 healthy adults: 30 female and 30 male participants.
• Emotion regulation was measured with self-report questionnaires and an experimental task that focused on reappraisal while participants viewed sad and happy faces.
• There was no relationship between grandiose or vulnerable narcissism and emotion regulation ability in the experimental task. This lack of association was found for both sexes (i.e., irrespective of sex).
• People who scored higher on vulnerable narcissism reported using the regulation strategy called suppression more often than people who scored lower on vulnerable narcissism.
• Vulnerable narcissism correlated positively with depressive symptoms and anhedonia; grandiose narcissism did not show a correlation with depressive symptoms in this sample.
• Limitations noted by the authors include that the sample was non-clinical (healthy individuals), relatively small (n=60), and the study focused mainly on reappraisal and suppression, so findings may not apply to pathological narcissism or t

Abstract

Narcissism has been widely discussed in the context of career success and leadership. Besides several adaptive traits, narcissism has been characterized by difficulties in emotion regulation. However, despite its essential role in mental health, there is little research on emotion regulation processes in narcissism. Specifically, the investigation of not only the habitual use of specific regulation strategies but also the actual ability to regulate is needed due to diverging implications for treatment approaches. Thereby it is important to differentiate between vulnerable and grandiose narcissism as these two phenotypes might be related differently to regulation deficits. The aim of this study was to examine the association between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism and emotion regulation in healthy individuals (30f/30m) focusing on the strategy reappraisal. Additionally, potential sex effects have been explored. Narcissism was assessed using self-report measures and emotion regulation with self-report questionnaires as well as an experimental regulation task. During this task, participants were presented with pictures of sad/happy faces with the instruction to indicate their subjective emotions via button press. Depending on the condition, participants either indicated their natural response or applied cognitive control strategies to regulate their own subjective emotions. Results indicate no relationship between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism and emotion regulation ability, irrespective of sex. Individuals high on vulnerable narcissism use the maladaptive regulation strategy suppression more frequently than individuals with low expressions. Individuals high on grandiose narcissism, in contrast, seem to avoid the suppression of positive emotions and do not express negative emotions in an uncontrolled manner. Interestingly, while grandiose narcissism was not associated with depressive symptoms, vulnerable narcissism correlated positively with depressive symptoms and anhedonia. Findings of this study underline the need to differentiate between grandiose and vulnerable manifestations of narcissism. Against our expectation, narcissism was not related to emotion regulation performance. In line with previous research, grandiose narcissism seems less harmful for mental health, while vulnerable narcissism is associated with psychological problems and the use of rather maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, i.e., suppression. Future research should investigate the relationship between pathological narcissism and emotion regulation also by extending the scope to other relevant regulation strategies.

Topics

Emotional Intelligence and Performance Personality Disorders and Psychopathology Personality Traits and Psychology

Categories

Clinical Psychology Psychology Social Sciences

Tags

Association (psychology) Biology Cognitive psychology Context (archaeology) Developmental psychology Economics Management Narcissism Paleontology Psychology Psychotherapist Social psychology Task (project management)