Narcissism and Situation Specific Open-Minded Cognition

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism (VN) and situation specific open-minded cognition (SOMC) by placing participants in a context designed to trigger the reciprocity effect. Previous literature has suggested that narcissism negatively impacts cognitive flexibility, with vulnerable narcissism expected to exhibit a more substantial effect. We hypothesized that both types of narcissism would be inversely related to OMC, and that the impact of vulnerable narcissism would be magnified in the presence of a condition effect. A sample of 177 participants was recruited from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform and was randomly assigned to either an open or closed-minded conversational partner in a controlled vignette scenario. Participants' levels of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism were assessed using the Narcissistic Personality Inventory-16 (NPI-16) and the Short Form Five Factor Narcissism Inventory (FFNI-SF) vulnerable narcissism subscale, respectively. Results indicated a significant negative correlation between both grandiose and vulnerable narcissism and OMC, with vulnerable narcissism showing a stronger association. However, contrary to our hypothesis, a significant condition effect was observed in only one of the multiple regression analyses, suggesting that the condition manipulation was not consistently effective across all models. The shortfall in the expected sample size may have contributed to the underpowered nature of the study, limiting the detection of subtle interaction effects. These findings highlight the complex dynamics between different forms of narcissism and cognitive processes, underscoring the need for further research with larger samples and alternative methodological approaches. Future studies should consider the potential influence of real-life scenarios and other situational variables to better understand the interplay between personality traits and cognitive outcomes.