Examining individual differences in metaperceptive accuracy using the social meta-accuracy model.

To what extent do individuals differ in understanding how others see them and who is particularly good at it? Answering these questions about the "good metaperceiver" is relevant given the beneficial outcomes of meta-accuracy. However, there likely is more than one type of the good metaperceiver: One who knows the specific impressions they make more than others do (dyadic meta-accuracy) and one who knows their reputation more than others do (generalized meta-accuracy). To identify and understand these good metaperceivers, we introduce the social meta-accuracy model (SMAM) as a statistical and conceptual framework and apply the SMAM to four samples of first impression interactions. As part of our demonstration, we also investigated the routes to and the correlates of both types of good metaperceivers. Results from SMAM show that, overall, people were able to detect the unique and general first impressions they made, but there was little evidence for individual differences in dyadic meta-accuracy in a first impression. In contrast, there were substantial individual differences in generalized meta-accuracy, and this ability was largely explained by being transparent (i.e., good metaperceivers were seen as they saw themselves). We also observed some evidence that good generalized metaperceivers in a first impression tend to be extraverted and popular. This work demonstrated that the SMAM is a useful tool for identifying and understanding both types of good metaperceivers and paves the way for future work on individual differences in meta-accuracy in other contexts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Narcissistic dimensions and depressive symptoms in patients across mental disorders in cognitive behavioural therapy and in psychoanalytic interactional therapy in Germany: a prospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND: Narcissistic personality traits have been theorised to negatively affect depressive symptoms, therapeutic alliance, and treatment outcome, even in the absence of narcissistic personality disorder. We aimed to examine how the dimensional narcissistic facets of admiration and rivalry affect depressive symptoms across treatment modalities in two transdiagnostic samples. METHODS: We did a naturalistic, observational prospective cohort study in two independent adult samples in Germany: one sample pooled from an inpatient psychiatric clinic and an outpatient treatment service offering cognitive behavioural treatment (CBT), and one sample from an inpatient clinic providing psychoanalytic interactional therapy (PIT). Inpatients treated with CBT had an affective or psychotic disorder. For the other two sites, data from all service users were collected. We examined the effect of core narcissism and its facets admiration and rivalry, measured by Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire-short version, on depressive symptoms, measured by Beck's Depression Inventory and Patient Health Questionnaire-Depression Scale, at baseline and after treatment in patients treated with CBT and PIT. Primary analyses were regression models, predicting baseline and post-treatment depression severity from core narcissism and its facets. Mediation analysis was done in the outpatient CBT group for the effect of the therapeutic alliance on the association between narcissism and depression severity after treatment. FINDINGS: The sample included 2371 patients (1423 [60·0%] female and 948 [40·0%] male; mean age 33·13 years [SD 13·19; range 18-81), with 517 inpatients and 1052 outpatients in the CBT group, and 802 inpatients in the PIT group. Ethnicity data were not collected. Mean treatment duration was 300 days (SD 319) for CBT and 67 days (SD 26) for PIT. Core narcissism did not predict depression severity before treatment in either group, but narcissistic rivalry was associated with higher depressive symptom load at baseline (ß 2·47 [95% CI 1·78 to 3·12] for CBT and 1·05 [0·54 to 1·55] for PIT) and narcissistic admiration showed the opposite effect (-2·02 [-2·62 to -1·41] for CBT and -0·64 [-1·11 to -0·17] for PIT). Poorer treatment response was predicted by core narcissism (ß 0·79 [0·10 to 1·47]) and narcissistic rivalry (0·89 [0·19 to 1·58]) in CBT, whereas admiration showed no effect. No effect of narcissism on treatment outcome was discernible in PIT. Therapeutic alliance mediated the effect of narcissism on post-treatment depression severity in the outpatient CBT sample. INTERPRETATION: As narcissism affects depression severity before and after treatment with CBT across psychiatric disorders, even in the absence of narcissistic personality disorder, the inclusion of dimensional assessments of narcissism should be considered in future research and clinical routines. The relevance of the therapeutic alliance and therapeutic strategy could be used to guide treatment approaches. FUNDING: IZKF Münster. TRANSLATION: For the German translation of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section.

Disentangling the contributions of agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic narcissism to drive for thinness and drive for muscularity.

Body image concerns revolving around body ideals (thin ideal, muscular ideal) are widespread among women. Whereas a stronger preoccupation with ideal physical appearance is often assumed for narcissistic women, previous empirical findings have been mixed. Following a tripartite structure of agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic narcissism facets, we reexamined whether trait narcissism predicted drive for thinness and drive for muscularity. We further explored the role of importance of appearance as a mediator and moderator of the relation between narcissism and body image concerns. Latent structural equation modeling was applied to self-report data from two independent nonclinical female samples (NSample1 = 224, NSample2 = 342). Results underlined the importance of distinguishing between narcissism facets: Neurotic (but not agentic or antagonistic) narcissism uniquely predicted drive for thinness and drive for muscularity. Importance of appearance mediated but did not robustly moderate these relations. Hence, neurotic narcissistic women (characterized by hypersensitivity, shame, and a fragile self-esteem) are particularly prone to body image concerns. This vulnerability seems partly driven by how much importance they ascribe to their appearance. Future work might build on these insights to further unravel the processes linking neurotic narcissism to body image concerns and how these can be targeted in practical interventions.