Poster #210 - Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, am I the Greatest of Them all?

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

Narcissists tend to think very highly of themselves—they believe that they are special and better than others (e.g., Thomaes, Bushman, Orobio de Castro, & Stegge, 2009). Yet, we know very little about how such self-views develop over time. In adolescence, children in general are motivated to engage in self-enhancement and self-protection (Harter, 2012), but this should be especially true of narcissistic children who are highly invested in preserving favorable private and public self-images. Also, when children enter adolescence, their self-appraisals are increasingly dependent on what others think of them or what children think others think of them (Cooley’s looking-glass theory; see Harter, 2012). Yet, research suggests that narcissists, at least in adulthood, are able to maintain their overly positive self-perceptions despite being aware that others do not hold them in such high regard (Carlson, Vazire, & Oltmanns, 2011). Thus, we anticipated that self-views of children with narcissistic traits would become more positive over time, especially in domains that reflect agency (e.g., popularity, attractiveness) rather than communal values (being friendly toward others). In addition, we also hypothesized that feedback from others (others’ perception and meta-perception) would have less influence on changes in narcissistic children’s self-appraisals.

The sample included 419 fifth- and eighth-grade children from Finland (Mage = 12.51 years at Time 1). At Time 1, participants were asked to rate the degree to which they and their classmates thought they were popular (self-perception: I think I am popular; meta-perception: My classmates think I am popular), smart, selfish, attractive, friendly, had a great sense of humor and many friends. In addition, children completed a peer-nomination inventory (others’ perception: S/he is popular) and measures of self-esteem and narcissism. At Time 2 (one year later), children again filled out the measure of self-perceptions.

Our study hypotheses were tested via hierarchical regression analyses. Self-perceptions in each domain at Time 2 served as the dependent variables. At Step 1, we always controlled for the Time-1 outcome (e.g., self-perceived popularity at Time 1), gender and grade. At Step 2, we evaluated the effects of others’ perception and meta-perception, narcissism and self-esteem. At Step 3, we tested two 2-way interactions of narcissism x others’ perception and narcissism x meta-perception.

We found that self-views of children with narcissistic traits became more positive over time in domains that are usually associated with dominance and leadership in the peer group (popularity, having a large number of friends, and attractiveness; see Table 1 for Results). In contrast, self-esteem did not predict increases in self-appraisals in any of the domains, except for one—children with high self-esteem perceived themselves to be more physically attractive over time. Both meta- and other perceptions also made unique contributions to changes in self-appraisals, with a few exceptions (see Table 1). None of the interactions were significant, suggesting that self-views of both narcissistic and non-narcissistic children alike change as a function of what others think of them (or what they think others think of them). Implications for theory and research will be discussed.

Authors

• Ariana Popoviciu, St. John's University
  Presenting Author

• Ernest Van Every Hodges, St. John's University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Katlin Peets, St. John's University
  Non-Presenting Author