Narcissistic men and women think they are so hot – But they are not

Narcissists think they are more knowledgeable, better leaders, and more attractive than others are. Higher narcissism scores in celebrities than in non-celebrities (Young & Pinsky, 2006) raise the question of whether narcissistic individuals actually are, to some degree, more knowledgeable or attractive than other individuals are. Because little research has investigated the degree to which narcissists’ ratings of their attractiveness are inflated relative to others’ ratings of their attractiveness, we asked men and women to evaluate their own attractiveness, and then we asked two separate panels of judges to view and rate facial shots of these men and women. More narcissistic men and women rated themselves as more attractive than less narcissistic individuals did, but outside judges did not rate more and less narcissistic individuals as any different in attractiveness. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Narcissistic men and women think they are so hot – but they are not In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a young manwho fell in love with his own image reflected in water and became so caught up in gazing at himself that he eventually died for lack of food or drink. In keeping with the legend, narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by excessive self-love. According to its mental illness classification in the fourth edition of the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (American Psychological Association., 2000), narcissistic personality disorder involves an exaggerated sense of self-importance, dominance, beauty, and entitlement, as well as a willingness to exploit others and a need for admiration from others. Since the validation of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI; Raskin & Hall, 1979; Raskin & Terry, 1988), research has documented subclinical variation in narcissistic tendencies (Campbell, Foster, & Finkel, 2002; John & Robins, 1994; McCullough, Emmons, Kilpatrick, & Mooney, 2003; Rhodewalt & Morf, 1998; Wallace & Baumeister, 2002). In contrast to their less narcissistic counterparts, for example, people who score high in narcissism display behaviors not unlike those of the mythical character Narcissus: They seek out opportunities to watch themselves, enjoy looking at themselves in the mirror, and get a psychological ‘‘boost” out of viewing themselves in the mirror and on videotape (Robins & John, 1997). ll rights reserved. : +1 715 836 2214. hek). A number of studies have documented bias in narcissists’ selfperceptions and relationship perceptions. For example, individuals who score high in narcissism are resistant to doubts about their romantic partners’ level of commitment (Foster & Campbell, 2005) in the face of their own lack of commitment (Campbell & Foster, 2002), are quick to perceive themselves as being treated poorly (McCullough et al., 2003), and are prone to offer inflated judgments of their performance on group tasks (John & Robins, 1994; Judge, LePine, & Rich, 2006). Recently, researchers have linked celebrity status with narcissism. In a study comparing students to 200 male and female celebrities (reality television personalities, comedians, actors, and musicians) invited on to a nationally syndicated radio talk show to offer advice and promote themselves, Young and Pinsky (2006) documented that celebrities score higher on narcissism than do non-celebrities. Moreover, degree of narcissism among celebrities was not associated with number of years as a celebrity, a possible indication that celebrities might have narcissistic tendencies prior to entering the entertainment industry. And, female celebrities scored higher in narcissism than male celebrities did, a possible indication of the emphasis on physical appearance among women in the entertainment industry. These findings spurred us to wonder whether celebrities are, to some degree, more attractive than are individuals from the general population. If so, then being more attractive could have contributed to their acquisition of celebrity status. This logic would apply to a broader population than just celebrities: In general terms, it is possible that narcissistic individuals actually are more attractive than less narcissistic individuals are. In other words, perhaps narcissistic individuals’ self-adorations are not entirely illusory. A. Bleske-Rechek et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 45 (2008) 420–424 421 Only one previous study has explicitly investigated whether narcissistic individuals’ perceptions of their own attractiveness are biased. In that study (Gabriel, Critelli, & Ee, 1994), a sample of male and female college students placed themselves in a percentile compared to their perception of the average college student; then, the researchers compared each target’s self-given percentile with judges’ placement of the target’s picture within a distribution of fifty other individuals of varying attractiveness whose pictures had been preselected from a university yearbook. Gabriel and colleagues documented attractiveness illusions among narcissistic men but not among narcissistic women – that is, narcissistic men rated themselves as more attractive than judges rated them to be. But, Gabriel et al.’s findings leave open the possibility that narcissistic men (and women) hold unrealistically high opinions about themselves yet also are more attractive than average. Perhaps the judges rated more narcissistic men as more attractive than they rated the less narcissistic men, even if they did not rate the more narcissistic men as positively as these men rated themselves. A narcissistic male, in other words, might think of himself as the next Brad Pitt; and although he is not the next Brad Pitt, he might still be more attractive than average. The current study attempts to address this possibility. In the current study, then, our first objective is to replicate the previous finding that narcissism is associated with positive evaluations of one’s own attractiveness. Then, we attempt to determine whether narcissists’ evaluations of themselves coincide with outsiders’ perceptions of their attractiveness or whether, in fact, narcissistic evaluations are entirely illusory.