Too arrogant for their own good? Why and when narcissists dismiss advice

• We examined the relationship between narcissism—at the trait and state levels—and advice taking, and its mechanisms.
• Trait narcissism and advice taking were negatively related, but this emerged only when controlling for extraversion.
• There was a stronger relationship between state narcissism and advice taking than between trait narcissism and advice taking.
• The relationship was driven by the perception that others are incompetent and the advice is not useful—confidence had no effect.
• Trait narcissism and advice taking were strongly negatively related under process accountability, due to self-enhancement.

Advice taking is central to making better decisions, but some individuals seem unwilling to use advice. The present research examined the relationship between narcissism and advice taking. In particular, we studied the mechanisms that explain why narcissists are dismissive of advice. In three studies, we found that narcissism and advice taking were negatively related, but only when measuring narcissism at the state level or when controlling for extraversion at the trait level. We also tested two mechanisms and found that confidence did not mediate the relationship; disregard for others did. In Study 4, participants were placed under different accountability pressures to affect self-enhancement. Results showed that the narcissism–advice taking relationship was strongly negative under process accountability. Taken together, these results suggest that narcissists eschew advice not because of greater confidence, but because they think others are incompetent and because they fail to reduce their self-enhancement when expecting to be assessed.