Threatening The Self-Concept: How Grandiose And Hypersensitive Narcissism Relate To Comparative Optimism

It is important to understand how people react to negative feedback, especially people with overly positive self-concepts. Both grandiose and hypersensitive narcissism are characterized by having an extremely positive self-concept. People high in hypersensitive narcissism tend to rely on other people to maintain their self-esteem, whereas people high in grandiose narcissism maintain their self-esteem on their own by using self-enhancement and self-protection strategies. In the current study, grandiose and hypersensitive narcissism were measured. Participants were then randomly assigned to receive either neutral or negative feedback on a problem-solving test. To assess how negative feedback was internalized, participants’ comparative optimism for the future was measured. In this measure, participants were asked how likely they think that desirable and undesirable events are to happen to them compared to their peers. Overall, participants higher in grandiose narcissism tended to be more optimistic, whereas participants higher in hypersensitive narcissism tended to be more pessimistic. Participants were similarly optimistic in the neutral and negative feedback conditions, and this relationship did not depend on participants’ level of grandiose or hypersensitive narcissism.