I'm merciful, am I not? Facets of narcissism and forgiveness revisited

- Examined links between narcissism facets and forgiveness.
- Forgiveness was assessed via self-report and an implicit association test (IAT).
- Antagonistic narcissism was negatively correlated with forgiveness (self-report).
- Agentic and communal narcissism were positively correlated with forgiveness (self-report).
- Narcissism facets were not significantly correlated with implicit forgiveness (IAT).

Narcissists are said to be particularly unforgiving, yet previous research remains inconclusive. This is likely because most previous studies focused on narcissism as a unitary construct, thereby neglecting its multiple facets. The present study (N = 1101) thus aimed to clarify the nuanced associations between different facets of narcissism and forgiveness, the latter being assessed via self-report and non-self-report measures. The results of a structural equation model (SEM) showed that antagonistic aspects of narcissism were negatively correlated with explicit forgiveness. Importantly, agentic as well as communal aspects of narcissism were positively correlated with explicit forgiveness. Aspects of narcissistic personality were not correlated with implicit forgiveness. Results suggest that not all facets of narcissism are associated with an unforgiving stance.