No shades of grey: does dichotomous thinking mediate the associations that narcissistic personality traits have with anger?

Abstract

Narcissism concerns grandiosity, vanity, self-absorption, and entitlement. Individuals with high levels of narcissism demonstrate a strong desire to maintain or boost their status and ego. This desire is so fundamental that individuals with high levels of narcissism may experience anger whenever they encounter provocations that may threaten their feelings of self-worth. However, little is known about the cognitive processes that characterize individuals with high levels of narcissism and how these cognitive processes may impact their responses to provocations. This is important because shedding light on these cognitive processes could help explain why individuals with high levels of narcissism are predisposed to become angry following perceived provocations. One cognitive process that may be particularly important is dichotomous thinking. That is, individuals with high levels of narcissism may see provocations in terms of “black” and “white” with no shades of grey. As a result, the overarching goal of the present research was to explore the connections between narcissism and dichotomous thinking (Study 1) and whether dichotomous thinking mediates the associations that narcissistic personality traits have with anger after experiencing a provocation (Studies 2 and 3). The results of Study 1 revealed that extraverted narcissism and antagonistic narcissism were associated with dichotomous thinking. Neurotic narcissism was not associated with dichotomous thinking at the zero-order correlation level. However, after controlling for the other types of narcissism, neurotic narcissism was associated with dichotomous thinking. Further, the results of Study 2 revealed that dichotomous thinking mediated the association that each type of narcissism (i.e., extraverted narcissism, antagonistic narcissism, neurotic narcissism) had with anger through hostile attributions. These findings did not replicate in Study 3. This may be explained, at least in part, by the recall writing task failing to activate dichotomous thinking in Study 3. Discussion focuses on the implications that dichotomous thinking may have for the lives of narcissistic individuals.