How narcissists see the social world? Trust, cynicism, and trifurcated model of narcissism

Author(s): Piotr Szymczak [sup.1] , Artur Sawicki [sup.2] , Mateusz Jaworski [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.440603.5, 0000 0001 2301 5211, Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw, , Wóycickiego 1/3 Street, [...]
The aim of the current study (N = 238) was to examine the relationship between narcissistic personality, depicted by the Trifurcated Model of Narcissism (namely, agentic extraversion, antagonism, and narcissistic neuroticism) and beliefs about human nature: interpersonal trust (the belief that human nature is good) and cynicism (the belief that human nature is evil and egoistic). Former studies on cynicism and trust in relation to vulnerable and grandiose narcissism bring inconsistent findings. We found that agentic extraversion was positively related to trust and unrelated to cynicism, antagonism was negatively related to trust and positively related to cynicism, and narcissistic neuroticism was not related to trust nor cynicism. Therefore, our findings indicate that the positive relationship between narcissism and cynical beliefs is limited to its antagonistic aspect so that antagonism is crucial in explaining beliefs held by narcissists towards others. Furthermore, narcissism indicates a positive relationship to trust as it is related to the agentic extraversion aspect, which might be considered as an adaptive aspect of narcissism. Therefore, the current study sheds a light on the relationship between narcissistic personality and beliefs about human nature.