Can neuroscience help to understand narcissism? A systematic review of an emerging field

Summary & key facts

Researchers looked at 34 brain studies about different kinds of narcissism, including the confident, dominant kind and the more insecure, vulnerable kind. They found that people who come across as grandiose often show stronger automatic stress and threat reactions in their bodies and brains, even when they do not report feeling stressed. The studies also point to problems in how these people process social and emotional cues, linked to changes in a brain system that helps notice what’s important. The review notes that vulnerable narcissism has been studied much less and offers a model and ideas for better research in the future.

Key facts:

• The paper reviewed 34 neuroscience studies on grandiose, vulnerable, and pathological narcissism, plus Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
• People described as grandiose showed stronger vigilance for threats to their self-esteem and stronger stress reactions after such threats, according to brain and body measures.
• Baseline measures—meaning stress indicators taken when people were not being challenged—also tended to be higher in people with grandiose narcissism.
• These heightened stress responses were often not reported by the people themselves, which suggests self-reports can miss important reactions.
• Interpersonal functioning in narcissism showed deficits in social and emotional processing, meaning difficulty with reading or responding to others’ feelings.
• Many of the findings point to altered activity in the brain’s salience network, a system that helps the brain notice important or threatening things and switch attention accordingly.
• The review found that vulnerable narcissism has been studied only rarely with neuroscience methods, so conclusions about that form are limited.
• The authors put forward an integrated model and specific ideas for future studies to test, and they recommend better methods for research going forward.

Abstract

Narcissism is a Janusian personality construct, associated with both grandiose self-assuredness and dominance, as well as vulnerable insecurity and reactivity. Central questions of intra- and interpersonal functioning in narcissism are still a matter of debate. Neuroscience could help to understand the paradoxical patterns of experience and behavior beyond the limitations of self-reports. We provide a systematic review of 34 neuroscience studies on grandiose, vulnerable, pathological narcissism, and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), spanning experimental investigations of intra- and interpersonal mechanisms, research on neurophysiological and neuroendocrine aspects of baseline function, and brain structural correlates. While neuroscience has scarcely directly studied vulnerable narcissism, grandiose narcissism is associated with heightened vigilance to ego threat and stress responses following ego threat, as well as heightened stress indicators in baseline measures. Such responses are not commonly observed in self-reports, highlighting the potential of neuroscience to augment our understanding of self-regulatory dynamics in narcissism. Interpersonal functioning is characterized by deficits in social-affective processes. Both involve altered activity within the salience network, pointing to a double dissociation regarding the expression of narcissism and self/other oriented situational focus. Findings are summarized in an integrative model providing testable hypotheses for future research along with methodological recommendations.

Topics

Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders Personality Disorders and Psychopathology Personality Traits and Psychology

Categories

Clinical Psychology Psychology Social Sciences

Tags

Cognition Cognitive psychology Narcissism Narcissistic personality disorder Neuroscience Personality Personality disorders Psychology Psychopathy Situational ethics Social cognition Social neuroscience Social psychology

Conditions & symptoms

Feeling disconnected from others