Individual differences in metacognitive ability of grandiose and vulnerable narcissists
- Shane Littrell, Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
- Jonathan Fugelsang, Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
- Evan Risko, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
AbstractUnderstanding individual differences in metacognitive ability may provide novel insights into how we think about our own thinking. Past research has revealed individual differences in the extent to which grandiose and vulnerable narcissists are metacognitively miscalibrated with respect to cognitive ability (Littrell, Fugelsang, & Risko, 2019). Building off of this work, we present a study examining the relations between trait narcissism across different cognitive tasks (e.g., verbal ability, memory) and measures of metacognitive ability (e.g., bias, relative accuracy). Results indicate that while grandiose and vulnerable narcissists did not differ with respect to performance on cognitive tasks, they did significantly differ in their performance on certain metacognitive metrics. These results contribute to both our understanding of narcissism, individual differences in metacognitive ability, and the relation between different measures of metacognitive ability.