Mirror, mirror on the wall, which form of narcissist knows self and others best of all?

We examined the relationships of narcissism and its various facets with measures of cognition, such as perspective-taking/theory of mind, emotional intelligence, empathy, and systemizing, in a non-clinical sample of 368 undergraduate students. Social and physical causal reasoning was assessed using a novel procedure, which allowed for a thorough examination of participants’ attributions of causes to social and non-social events. Results revealed that individuals high in grandiosity scored higher on measures of social reasoning, emotional intelligence, perspective-taking, systemizing, and empathy. Other facets of narcissism, as well as the overall construct of narcissism, were negatively associated with emotional intelligence, empathy, and perspective-taking. These results suggest that the facets of narcissism may differ considerably in their associations with various aspects of social cognition, which should prompt researchers to further examine the heterogeneous nature of narcissism.

► Multiple facets of narcissism were assessed for relationships with social and physical cognition.
► Grandiose narcissists showed ‘positive’ social cognitive traits.
► The general construct of narcissism was negatively associated with social cognition.