Why people form such positive first impressions of narcissists.
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The "charismatic air" of narcissists-- from their flashy attire, to their self-assured behaviors, to their charming glances, to their witty humor-- often makes a big first impression. At the same time, people seem to be really good at accurately perceiving narcissism in others based on minimal information (even just physical appearance is usually enough of a cue to accurately perceive narcissism). Which raises an interesting question: why are narcissists-- which are characterized by extremely high levels of exhibitionism, arrogance, sense of superiority, vanity, entitlement, exploitativeness, and the incessant need for acclaim from others-- so attractive?
Canadian researchers Miranda Giacomin and Christian Jordan thought there might be more than meets the narcissistic eye. To shed further light on the allure of narcissism, they examined whether narcissists make positive first impressions because people may confuse narcissism for high self-esteem. While many people tend to think that narcissists score sky high in self-esteem, the association between narcissism and self-esteem is actually rather small, and narcissism and self-esteem have very different developmental pathways and outcomes.*
Those with a healthy self-esteem believe they are worthy and competent, and strive for intimate, meaningful connections with others, but do not necessarily see themselves as superior to others. In contrast, narcissists think they are superior to others, but they don't necessarily view themselves as worthy. Indeed, because they often lack an inner stable sense of self-security, the narcissists' sense of self-esteem is often almost entirely dependent on the validation of others. Could it be that people are confusing the two?
This is just what the researchers found. People who scored high in narcissism and self-esteem were perceived as having higher self-esteem than people who were equally high in self-esteem but less narcissistic. They even looked at dating profiles and found that heterosexual female participants indicated greater interest in meeting males who were more narcissistic based on their Tinder profile pictures, and this effect was specifically explained by higher perception of self-esteem, not narcissism. These results suggest that perceptions of narcissism were being overridden by the positive effect of perceptions of self-esteem on liking.
But here's the kicker: perceptions of narcissism by itself were associated with less liking of the person. In fact, the pattern of greater liking of narcissists was reversed when perceivers were explicitly told that narcissistic targets scored high in narcissism. In these cases, people preferred those who scored high in self-esteem but low in narcissism.
Why do people perceive narcissists as having especially high self-esteem?
These findings suggest that those scoring high in narcissism make positive first impressions because people perceive them to have high self-esteem, causing them to overlook their narcissism (even in dating profiles). However, people aren't attracted to the narcissism per se, and the pattern of greater liking was reversed when perceivers were explicitly told that people scored high in narcissism. Why are so many people misperceiving narcissism as self-esteem? The researchers raise some possibilities.
