Agentic narcissism, communal narcissism, and prosociality.

Grandiose narcissism and prosociality are important topics in personality and social psychology, but research on their interplay is lacking. We present a first large-scale, systematic, and multimethod investigation linking the two. In 2 studies (N1 = 688, N2 = 336), we assessed grandiose narcissism comprehensively (i.e., agentic and communal narcissism) and examined its relations with instantiations of prosociality, namely, objective prosociality (actual behavior in Study 1; round-robin informant-reports in a real-life setting in Study 2) and subjective prosociality (self-perceptions in Studies 1 and 2). We obtained a consistent set of results. Agentic narcissism was related to lower objective prosociality and lower subjective prosociality. Communal narcissism, by contrast, was unrelated to objective prosociality, but was related to higher subjective prosociality. Additionally, we tested for prosociality self-enhancement among agentic and communal narcissists. Agentic narcissists evinced the same (and modest) level of prosociality self-enhancement as their non-narcissistic counterparts. Communal narcissists, by contrast, evinced substantial levels of prosociality self-enhancement, whereas their non-narcissistic counterparts did not enhance their prosociality at all. We discuss implications of the findings for the literature on narcissism and antisociality, and for the concept of prosocial personality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Individual self > relational self > collective self-But why? Processes driving the self-hierarchy in self- and person perception.

OBJECTIVE: The self has three parts: individual, relational, and collective. Typically, people personally value their individual self most, their relational self less, and their collective self least. This self-hierarchy is consequential, but underlying processes have remained unknown. Here, we propose two process accounts. The content account draws upon selves' agentic-communal content, explaining why the individual self is preferred most. The teleology account draws upon selves' instrumentality for becoming one's personal ideal, explaining why the collective self is preferred least. METHOD: In Study 1 (N = 200, 45% female, Mage = 32.9 years, 79% Caucasian), participants listed characteristics of their three selves (individual, relational, collective) and evaluated those characteristics in seven preference tasks. Additionally, we analyzed the characteristics' agentic-communal content, and participants rated their characteristics' teleological instrumentality. Study 2 (N = 396, 55% female, Mage = 34.5 years, 76% Caucasian) used identical methodology and featured an additional condition, where participants evaluated the selves of a friend. RESULTS: Study 1 reconfirmed the self-hierarchy and supported both process accounts. Study 2 replicated and extended findings. As hypothesized, when people evaluate others' selves, a different self-hierarchy emerges (relational > individual > collective). CONCLUSIONS: This research pioneers process-driven explanations for the self-hierarchy, establishing why people prefer different self-parts in themselves than in others.

Mind-Body Practices and the Self: Yoga and Meditation Do Not Quiet the Ego but Instead Boost Self-Enhancement.

Mind-body practices enjoy immense public and scientific interest. Yoga and meditation are highly popular. Purportedly, they foster well-being by curtailing self-enhancement bias. However, this "ego-quieting" effect contradicts an apparent psychological universal, the self-centrality principle. According to this principle, practicing any skill renders that skill self-central, and self-centrality breeds self-enhancement bias. We examined those opposing predictions in the first tests of mind-body practices' self-enhancement effects. In Experiment 1, we followed 93 yoga students over 15 weeks, assessing self-centrality and self-enhancement bias after yoga practice (yoga condition, n = 246) and without practice (control condition, n = 231). In Experiment 2, we followed 162 meditators over 4 weeks (meditation condition: n = 246; control condition: n = 245). Self-enhancement bias was higher in the yoga (Experiment 1) and meditation (Experiment 2) conditions, and those effects were mediated by greater self-centrality. Additionally, greater self-enhancement bias mediated mind-body practices' well-being benefits. Evidently, neither yoga nor meditation fully quiet the ego; to the contrary, they boost self-enhancement.