Seeing my world in a million little pieces: narcissism, self-construal, and cognitive-perceptual style
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Observing the Transformation of Bodily Self-consciousness in the Squeeze-machine Experiment
Published on: March 8, 2019
Sara Konrath1, Brad J Bushman, Tyler Grove
1Research Center for Group Dynamics, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. skonrath@umich.edu
Abstract:
In 4 studies we examine the association between narcissism, self-construal, and cognitive-perceptual style, hypothesizing that high self-focus in combination with low other-focus (i.e., social atomization) is related to an analytic cognitive-perceptual style. Participants completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, the Self-Construal Scale, and measures of cognitive-perceptual style such as the Analysis-Holism Scale, the Embedded Figures Test, a visual illusion test, and a measure of the representativeness heuristic. We found evidence for a decontextualized cognitive-perceptual style in socially atomized participants, which included those high in narcissism and also those who had a combination of high independent and low interdependent self-construal. A meta-analytic integration of our findings found that narcissism was positively related to independent and negatively related to interdependent self-construal, and mediation analyses found some evidence that the relationship between self-construal and cognitive-perceptual style is partially mediated by narcissism.
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