Using the bogus pipeline to investigate grandiose narcissisim – Brunell & Fisher – 2014 - Article

What is this article about?

In personality psychology, narcissism is seen as an individual difference variable that can be measured in the general population. Often it is also termed as ‘grandiose narcissism’. Grandiose narcissists tend to be self-focused and self-serving, and they believe that they are better (more intelligent and more attractive) than others. They are also said to exaggerate their abilities and achievements. For narcissists, relationships often serve as a means of self-esteem regulation or personal gain rather than for intimacy. According to the ‘psychodynamic mask model’, narcissists’ grandiosity functions as a mask for below-the-surface vulnerabilities. Researchers have been interested in how much narcissists actually dislike themselves and they examined this with the use of implicit self-esteem measures, for example with the Implicit Association Test (IAT). In these studies, it was not found that grandiose narcissists have low implicit self-esteem. Before this can be tested further, one should determine to what degree explicit measures of narcissism and self-esteem are subject to reporting bias. In this study it was tested whether people might respond differently to NPI items when they are anonymous or when they think that somebody else would view their responses. A bogus pipeline paradigm facilitates honesty in reporting because participants might consider how they actually are when they think that they are connected to a lie detector. Furthermore, it might also be the case that narcissists have lower scores on a measure of narcissism when they think that someone else will view their responses, compared to a bogus pipeline condition in which they are pressured to be honest. However, if one thinks that scores in the narcissistic direction are desirable, then they might have higher scores on the NPI when they think that others will be viewing their responses. In one study using a bogus pipeline paradigm, it was found that women with higher NPI scores reported lower self-esteem in the bogus pipeline condition than in the control condition. The NPI was also positively associated with global self-esteem in the control condition, but not negatively associated with self-esteem in the bogus pipeline condition. In this study, the goal is to examine socially-motivated reporting bias on narcissism-related measures and self-esteem in both women and men. Grandiose narcissism as well as self-esteem will be assessed simultaneously. Participants completed paper versions of questionnaires regardless of condition. No in-person interviews were conducted, because it is time-consuming and might be stressful. There was also an ‘exposure threat’ condition which was used to examine whether participants alter their responding when they think that others might be able to see their responses. Measures of entitlement and grandiosity were also included, and both women and men were examined in order to test whether gender moderated the association between grandiose narcissism and self-esteem.

What were the methods used?

There were 538 psychology students, with an average age of 18.72. Most participants were white. The Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) consists of 40 forced-choice items and was used to assess narcissism. The Psychological Entitlement Scale contained 9 statement was used to measure a sense of entitlement. The Narcissistic Grandiosity Scale was used to assess grandiosity and it consisted of 16 grandiose adjectives. Participants completed the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale to assess global self-esteem in 10 items. Socially desirable responding was also assessed with the 20-item version of the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale.

What can be concluded from this article?

There was no difference in grandiose narcissists’ NPI scores and answers to the questionnaire when they felt pressure to be honest or when they believed that someone was watching their responses. There thus seems to be no response bias present in explicit measures to asses narcissism. This is thus in contrast to the psychodynamic mask model which suggests that narcissists use their grandiosity to hide their vulnerabilities. In each condition, narcissism was positively associated with grandiosity, self-esteem, and entitlement. It thus seems that grandiose narcissists are genuine in their reports of global self-esteem independent of how they were assessed. In the Exposure Threat condition, participants inflated their self-esteem responses and their grandiosity responses when they thought that somebody else might look over their responses. This means that participants are trying to cast themselves in a more favorable light when they present themselves as more grandiose. For grandiosity, the pattern was largely due to the female participants. This is a strange finding when considering that women are, in our society, expected to be more modest than men. This should be studied further, and it could be that narcissism manifests differently among women than among men. According to the DSM-5, vulnerability is at the core of narcissism, and this study did not provide evidence for this claim. The results of this study also differed from another study that found that narcissism was positively related to self-esteem, except for when the participants’ responses were assessed using a bogus pipeline. This difference in results could be due to differences in methodology. Overall, the results of this study do not support the idea that vulnerability underlies narcissism as there was no response bias found across the three conditions.