The nonlinear association between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism: An individual data meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: Narcissism can manifest in grandiose and vulnerable patterns of experience and behavior. While largely unrelated in the general population, individuals with clinically relevant narcissism are thought to display both. Our previous studies showed that trait measures of grandiosity and vulnerability were unrelated at low-to-moderate levels of grandiose narcissism, but related at high levels. METHOD: We replicate and extend these findings in a preregistered individual data meta-analysis ("mega-analysis") using data from the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI)/Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale (HSNS; N = 10,519, k = 28) and the Five-Factor Narcissism Inventory (FFNI; N = 7,738, k = 17). RESULTS: There was strong evidence for the hypothesis in the FFNI (ßGrandiose < 1 SD  = .08, ßGrandiose > 1 SD  = .36, ßGrandiose > 2 SD  = .53), and weaker evidence in the NPI/HSNS (ßGrandiose < 1 SD  = .00, ßGrandiose > 1 SD  = .12, ßGrandiose > 2 SD  = .32). Nonlinearity increased with age but was invariant across other moderators. Higher vulnerability was predicted by elevated antagonistic and low agentic narcissism at subfactor level. CONCLUSION: Narcissistic vulnerability increases at high levels of grandiosity. Interpreted along Whole Trait Theory, the effects are thought to reflect state changes echoing in trait measures and can help to link personality and clinical models.

Differences in brain morphometry associated with creative performance in high- and average-creative achievers.

Nearly everyone has the ability for creative thought. Yet, certain individuals create works that propel their fields, challenge paradigms, and advance the world. What are the neurobiological factors that might underlie such prominent creative achievement? In this study, we focus on morphometric differences in brain structure between high creative achievers from diverse fields of expertise and a 'smart' comparison group of age-, intelligence-, and education-matched average creative achievers. Participants underwent a high-resolution structural brain imaging scan and completed a series of intelligence, creative thinking, personality, and creative achievement measures. We examined whether high and average creative achievers could be distinguished based on the relationship between morphometric brain measures (cortical area and thickness) and behavioral measures. Although participants' performance on the behavioral measures did not differ between the two groups aside from creative achievement, the relationship between posterior parietal cortex morphometry and creativity, intelligence, and personality measures depended on group membership. These results suggest that extraordinary creativity may be associated with measurable structural brain differences, especially within parietal cortex.

Differences in brain activity patterns during creative idea generation between eminent and non-eminent thinkers.

An influential model of the neural mechanisms of creative thought suggests that creativity is manifested in the joint contributions of the Default Mode Network (DMN; a set of regions in the medial PFC, lateral and medial parietal cortex, and the medial temporal lobes) and the executive networks within the dorsolateral PFC. Several empirical reports have offered support for this model by showing that complex interactions between these brain systems account for individual differences in creative performance. The present study examined whether the engagement of these regions in idea generation is modulated by one's eminence in a creativity-related field. Twenty (n â€‹= â€‹20) healthy eminent creators from diverse fields of expertise and a 'smart' comparison group of sixteen (n â€‹= â€‹16) age- and education-matched non-eminent thinkers were administered a creative generation task (an adaptation of the Alternative Uses Task) and a control perceptual task, while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The participants' verbal responses were recorded through a noise-canceling microphone and were later coded for fluency and accuracy. Behavioral and fMRI analyses revealed commonalities between groups, but also distinct patterns of activation in default mode and executive brain regions between the eminent and the non-eminent participants during creative thinking. We interpret these findings in the context of the well-documented contributions of these regions in the generation of creative ideas as modulated, in this study, by participants' creative eminence.

Unique Associations Between Big Five Personality Aspects and Multiple Dimensions of Well-Being.

OBJECTIVE: Personality traits are associated with well-being, but the precise correlates vary across well-being dimensions and within each Big Five domain. This study is the first to examine the unique associations between the Big Five aspects (rather than facets) and multiple well-being dimensions. METHOD: Two samples of U.S. participants (total N = 706; Mage = 36.17; 54% female) recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk completed measures of the Big Five aspects and subjective, psychological, and PERMA well-being. RESULTS: One aspect within each domain was more strongly associated with well-being variables. Enthusiasm and Withdrawal were strongly associated with a broad range of well-being variables, but other aspects of personality also had idiosyncratic associations with distinct forms of positive functioning (e.g., Compassion with positive relationships, Industriousness with accomplishment, and Intellect with personal growth). CONCLUSIONS: An aspect-level analysis provides an optimal (i.e., parsimonious yet sufficiently comprehensive) framework for describing the relation between personality traits and multiple ways of thriving in life.

Personality and complex brain networks: The role of openness to experience in default network efficiency.

The brain's default network (DN) has been a topic of considerable empirical interest. In fMRI research, DN activity is associated with spontaneous and self-generated cognition, such as mind-wandering, episodic memory retrieval, future thinking, mental simulation, theory of mind reasoning, and creative cognition. Despite large literatures on developmental and disease-related influences on the DN, surprisingly little is known about the factors that impact normal variation in DN functioning. Using structural equation modeling and graph theoretical analysis of resting-state fMRI data, we provide evidence that Openness to Experience-a normally distributed personality trait reflecting a tendency to engage in imaginative, creative, and abstract cognitive processes-underlies efficiency of information processing within the DN. Across two studies, Openness predicted the global efficiency of a functional network comprised of DN nodes and corresponding edges. In Study 2, Openness remained a robust predictor-even after controlling for intelligence, age, gender, and other personality variables-explaining 18% of the variance in DN functioning. These findings point to a biological basis of Openness to Experience, and suggest that normally distributed personality traits affect the intrinsic architecture of large-scale brain systems. Hum Brain Mapp 37:773-779, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Openness to Experience and Intellect Differentially Predict Creative Achievement in the Arts and Sciences.

The Big Five personality dimension Openness/Intellect is the trait most closely associated with creativity and creative achievement. Little is known, however, regarding the discriminant validity of its two aspects-Openness to Experience (reflecting cognitive engagement with perception, fantasy, aesthetics, and emotions) and Intellect (reflecting cognitive engagement with abstract and semantic information, primarily through reasoning)-in relation to creativity. In four demographically diverse samples totaling 1,035 participants, we investigated the independent predictive validity of Openness and Intellect by assessing the relations among cognitive ability, divergent thinking, personality, and creative achievement across the arts and sciences. We confirmed the hypothesis that whereas Openness predicts creative achievement in the arts, Intellect predicts creative achievement in the sciences. Inclusion of performance measures of general cognitive ability and divergent thinking indicated that the relation of Intellect to scientific creativity may be due at least in part to these abilities. Lastly, we found that Extraversion additionally predicted creative achievement in the arts, independently of Openness. Results are discussed in the context of dual-process theory.

Jerome L. Singer (1924-2019).

Memorializes Jerome L. Singer (1924-2019). Singer's seminal research, conducted over 50þ years, laid the foundations for virtually all modern investigations of stream of consciousness and mind wandering. During a time when daydreaming was considered pathological, Singer showed it to be a pervasive aspect of human experience that served positive social and creative functions, earning him the moniker "the father of daydreaming." After receiving his PhD in clinical psychology in 1951, Singer was certified as a psychoanalyst through the William Alanson White Institute, while also holding several part-time research appointments. In 1963, Singer became director of the clinical psychology program at City University, where he and collaborator John Antrobus studied "decoupled attention." Singer joined the faculty of Yale University in 1972 and assumed emeritus status in 2006. At Yale, he worked closely with his wife Dorothy (who was an exemplary developmental psychologist in her own right), where they codirected Yale's Family TV Research and Consultation Center for more than 30 years. He died on December 14, 2019. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Experiential learning of cultural norms: The role of implicit and explicit aptitudes.

How should I greet her? Should I do what he requests? Newcomers to a culture learn its interpersonal norms at varying rates, largely through trial-and-error experience. Given that the culturally correct response often depends on conditions that are subtle and complex, we propose that newcomers' rate of acculturation depends on not only their explicit aptitude (e.g., reasoning ability) but also their implicit aptitude (e.g., pattern recognition ability). In Studies 1-3, participants experienced a range of influence situations sourced from a foreign culture. Across many trials, they decided whether or not to comply and then received accuracy feedback (based on what a majority of locals indicated to be the appropriate action in each situation). Across the 3 studies, stronger implicit aptitude was associated with greater improvement from trial-and-error experience, whereas stronger explicit aptitude was not. In Studies 4-6, participants experienced a range of greeting situations from a foreign culture. Across many trials, implicit aptitude predicted experiential learning, especially under conditions that impede reasoning: multiple cues, subliminal feedback, or inconsistent feedback. Study 7 found that the predictiveness of implicit aptitude was weaker under a condition that impedes associative processing: delayed feedback. These findings highlight the important role of implicit aptitude in helping people learn interpersonal norms from trial-and-error experience, particularly because in real-life intercultural interactions, the relevant cues are often complex, and the feedback is often fleeting and inconsistent but immediate. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Healthy Selfishness and Pathological Altruism: Measuring Two Paradoxical Forms of Selfishness.

Selfishness is often regarded as an undesirable or even immoral characteristic, whereas altruism is typically considered universally desirable and virtuous. However, human history as well as the works of humanistic and psychodynamic psychologists point to a more complex picture: not all selfishness is necessarily bad, and not all altruism is necessarily good. Based on these writings, we introduce new scales for the assessment of individual differences in two paradoxical forms of selfishness that have lacked measurement in the field - healthy selfishness (HS) and pathological altruism (PA). In two studies (N 1 = 370, N 2 = 891), we constructed and validated the HS and PA scales. The scales showed good internal consistency and a clear two-dimensional structure across both studies. HS was related to higher levels of psychological well-being and adaptive psychological functioning as well as a genuine prosocial orientation. PA was associated with maladaptive psychological outcomes, vulnerable narcissism, and selfish motivations for helping others. These results underpin the paradoxical nature of both constructs. We discuss the implications for future research, including clinical implications.

Clinical Correlates of Vulnerable and Grandiose Narcissism: A Personality Perspective.

There is broad consensus that there are at least two different dimensions of narcissism: vulnerable and grandiose. In this study, the authors use a new trifurcated, three-factor model of narcissism to examine relations between aspects of narcissism and an array of clinically relevant criteria related to psychopathology, the self, authenticity, and well-being. Neurotic and antagonistic aspects of narcissism emerged as the most clinically relevant dimensions of narcissism, bearing relations with outcomes relating to interpersonal guilt, insecure attachment styles, cognitive distortions, maladaptive defense mechanisms, experiential avoidance, impostor syndrome, weak sense of self, inauthenticity, low self-esteem, and reduced psychological well-being. Grandiose narcissism was not correlated with most forms of psychopathology and was even positively associated with life satisfaction. Nevertheless, a surprising link was found between grandiose narcissism and multiple indicators of inauthenticity. Implications for the appropriate conceptualization, assessment, and treatment of pathological narcissism are discussed.

The Light vs. Dark Triad of Personality: Contrasting Two Very Different Profiles of Human Nature.

While there is a growing literature on "dark traits" (i.e., socially aversive traits), there has been a lack of integration with the burgeoning research literature on positive traits and fulfilling and growth-oriented outcomes in life. To help move the field toward greater integration, we contrasted the nomological network of the Dark Triad (a well-studied cluster of socially aversive traits) with the nomological network of the Light Triad, measured by the 12-item Light Triad Scale (LTS). The LTS is a first draft measure of a loving and beneficent orientation toward others ("everyday saints") that consists of three facets: Kantianism (treating people as ends unto themselves), Humanism (valuing the dignity and worth of each individual), and Faith in Humanity (believing in the fundamental goodness of humans). Across four demographically diverse samples (N = 1,518), the LTS demonstrated excellent reliability and validity, predicting life satisfaction and a wide range of growth-oriented and self-transcendent outcomes above and beyond existing measures of personality. In contrast, the Dark Triad was negatively associated with life satisfaction and growth-oriented outcomes, and showed stronger linkages to selfish, exploitative, aggressive, and socially aversive outcomes. This exploratory study of the contrasting nomological networks of the Light vs. Dark Triad provides several ways forward for more principled and data driven approaches to explore both the malevolent and beneficent sides of human nature.

The Higher the Score, the Darker the Core: The Nonlinear Association Between Grandiose and Vulnerable Narcissism.

Narcissism is a truly Janusian phenomenon, consisting of both narcissistic grandiosity, exhibitionism, admiration-seeking, boldness, and dominance on the one hand, and narcissistic vulnerability, introversion, withdrawal, hypersensitivity, and anxiety on the other hand. While there is broad consensus that these two seemingly contradictory faces of narcissism can be empirically discerned and have different implications for psychological functioning and mental health, there is not yet agreement on whether grandiose and vulnerable narcissism should be regarded as independent traits or as two manifestations of one personality trait. Previous research indicates that both views hold true when the level of grandiosity is considered a moderating factor: while grandiose and vulnerable narcissism are largely unrelated in the range of normal personality variation, they are correlated in the range of high grandiosity (Jauk et al., 2017b). Here, we replicate and extend this work in an independent sample (N = 891) using a more comprehensive narcissism inventory grounded in a new trifurcated model of narcissism. The trifurcated model partitions narcissism into three main personality dimensions: agentic extraversion, antagonism, and neuroticism. We found a significant breakpoint in the association between narcissistic grandiosity and vulnerability at 75% cumulative frequency of grandiosity. While grandiosity and vulnerability are unrelated below this breakpoint (r = 0.02), they are strongly correlated above (r = 0.45). In the lower range of grandiose narcissism, grandiosity draws more upon agentic extraversion and is largely associated with mental health. In the upper range, however, grandiosity is more strongly linked to antagonism and is substantially associated with fear, negative affect, and depression. These findings provide evidence for the view that grandiose and vulnerable narcissism are distinct traits at lower levels of grandiosity, but blend into an antagonistic core with signs of psychological maladjustment at higher levels. Implications for research on narcissism as a personality trait, as well as clinical practice, are discussed.

World-class expertise: a developmental model.

The field of psychology has done a remarkable job discovering the ways people differ from one another in their abilities and talents, but has long neglected the diverse ways people can unleash those capacities. There is no plausible mechanism by which our genes directly encode skills like how to dribble a basketball, play the violin, or solve an algebraic equation. We are not born knowing how to write a sonnet or flip an omelet. On the contrary, all human expertise-even at the far-right tail of the distribution-depends on experience and training. A more accurate understanding of the development of high achievement should inspire people to push beyond their perceived and often self-imposed limits to reach heights they never would have imagined possible. WIREs Cogn Sci 2017, 8:e1365. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1365 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

Cultivating the social-emotional imagination in gifted education: insights from educational neuroscience.

Evidence from education, psychology, and neuroscience suggests that investing in the development of the social-emotional imagination is essential to cultivating giftedness in adolescents. Nurturing these capacities may be especially effective for promoting giftedness in students who are likely to lose interest and ambition over time. Giftedness is frequently equated with high general intelligence as measured by IQ tests, but this narrow conceptualization does not adequately capture students' abilities to utilize their talents strategically to fully realize their future possible selves. The brain's default mode network is thought to play an important role in supporting imaginative thinking about the self and others across time. Because this network's functioning is temporarily attenuated when individuals engage in task- and action-oriented focus (mindsets thought to engage the brain's executive attention network), we suggest that consistently focusing students on tasks requiring immediate action could undermine long-term cultivation of giftedness. We argue that giftedness-especially in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)-can be cultivated by encouraging adolescents' intellectual curiosity and supporting their ability to connect schoolwork to a larger purpose. Improving STEM and gifted education may depend upon a shift from knowledge transmission and regimented evaluation to creative exploration, intentional reflectiveness, and mindful switching between task focus and imagining.

Default and Executive Network Coupling Supports Creative Idea Production.

The role of attention in creative cognition remains controversial. Neuroimaging studies have reported activation of brain regions linked to both cognitive control and spontaneous imaginative processes, raising questions about how these regions interact to support creative thought. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we explored this question by examining dynamic interactions between brain regions during a divergent thinking task. Multivariate pattern analysis revealed a distributed network associated with divergent thinking, including several core hubs of the default (posterior cingulate) and executive (dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) networks. The resting-state network affiliation of these regions was confirmed using data from an independent sample of participants. Graph theory analysis assessed global efficiency of the divergent thinking network, and network efficiency was found to increase as a function of individual differences in divergent thinking ability. Moreover, temporal connectivity analysis revealed increased coupling between default and salience network regions (bilateral insula) at the beginning of the task, followed by increased coupling between default and executive network regions at later stages. Such dynamic coupling suggests that divergent thinking involves cooperation between brain networks linked to cognitive control and spontaneous thought, which may reflect focused internal attention and the top-down control of spontaneous cognition during creative idea production.

Ode to positive constructive daydreaming.

Nearly 60 years ago, Jerome L. Singer launched a groundbreaking research program into daydreaming (Singer, 1955, 1975, 2009) that presaged and laid the foundation for virtually every major strand of mind wandering research active today (Antrobus, 1999; Klinger, 1999, 2009). Here we review Singer's enormous contribution to the field, which includes insights, methodologies, and tools still in use today, and trace his enduring legacy as revealed in the recent proliferation of mind wandering studies. We then turn to the central theme in Singer's work, the adaptive nature of positive constructive daydreaming, which was a revolutionary idea when Singer began his work in the 1950s and remains underreported today. Last, we propose a new approach to answering the enduring question: Why does mind wandering persist and occupy so much of our time, as much as 50% of our waking time according to some estimates, if it is as costly as most studies suggest?

Predicting preferences for sex acts: which traits matter most, and why?

Several dispositional traits have been examined in mating contexts by evolutionary psychologists. Such traits include life history strategy, sociosexuality, and the Big Five. Recently, scholars have examined the validity and predictive utility of mating intelligence, a new construct designed to capture the cognitive processes that underlie mating psychology. The current research employed a battery of dispositional traits that include all these constructs in an effort to predict preferences for different kinds of sex acts. Sexual acts vary wildly, and the ability to predict this variability may well hold an important key to underlying sexual strategies. A sample of 607 young adults (144 males and 463 females) completed measures of each of these traits as well as a measure of preference for specific sex acts (along with providing information on their sexual orientation). The traits predicted variability in preference for sex acts - with mating intelligence being the most predictive (for instance, mating intelligence was positively related to preference for vaginal intercourse across the sexes). Sex differences emerged (e.g., males show a stronger preference for anal sex than do females). Discussion focuses on (a) sex differences in preference for sex acts along with (b) why the trait variables predicted preferences in sex acts.

Intact implicit learning in autism spectrum conditions.

Individuals with autism spectrum condition (ASC) have diagnostic impairments in skills that are associated with an implicit acquisition; however, it is not clear whether ASC individuals show specific implicit learning deficits. We compared ASC and typically developing (TD) individuals matched for IQ on five learning tasks: four implicit learning tasks--contextual cueing, serial reaction time, artificial grammar learning, and probabilistic classification learning tasks--that used procedures expressly designed to minimize the use of explicit strategies, and one comparison explicit learning task, paired associates learning. We found implicit learning to be intact in ASC. Beyond no evidence of differences, there was evidence of statistical equivalence between the groups on all the implicit learning tasks. This was not a consequence of compensation by explicit learning ability or IQ. Furthermore, there was no evidence to relate implicit learning to ASC symptomatology. We conclude that implicit mechanisms are preserved in ASC and propose that it is disruption by other atypical processes that impact negatively on the development of skills associated with an implicit acquisition.

Implicit learning as an ability.

The ability to automatically and implicitly detect complex and noisy regularities in the environment is a fundamental aspect of human cognition. Despite considerable interest in implicit processes, few researchers have conceptualized implicit learning as an ability with meaningful individual differences. Instead, various researchers (e.g., Reber, 1993; Stanovich, 2009) have suggested that individual differences in implicit learning are minimal relative to individual differences in explicit learning. In the current study of English 16-17year old students, we investigated the association of individual differences in implicit learning with a variety of cognitive and personality variables. Consistent with prior research and theorizing, implicit learning, as measured by a probabilistic sequence learning task, was more weakly related to psychometric intelligence than was explicit associative learning, and was unrelated to working memory. Structural equation modeling revealed that implicit learning was independently related to two components of psychometric intelligence: verbal analogical reasoning and processing speed. Implicit learning was also independently related to academic performance on two foreign language exams (French, German). Further, implicit learning was significantly associated with aspects of self-reported personality, including intuition, Openness to Experience, and impulsivity. We discuss the implications of implicit learning as an ability for dual-process theories of cognition, intelligence, personality, skill learning, complex cognition, and language acquisition.