People who have narcissistic personality traits show increased muscle activity in their face, particularly in muscles related to expressions of anger and frustration, when they receive negative feedback, according to new research published in Psychophysiology. This suggests that narcissistic individuals have an exaggerated response to socially threatening situations, which could contribute to their difficulties in interpersonal relationships.
The authors behind the new study wanted to understand how narcissistic people react emotionally when they receive negative feedback. Some studies suggest that they are more prone to become angry, but other studies have found no evidence of this. Self-reporting can be biased, so the researchers wanted to use a method that is harder to fake. They chose to study the activity of facial muscles, which can reveal emotional reactions that people might not be aware of or able to control.
“The research was based on data collected with my colleagues Otto Halmesvaara and Mikko Annala many years ago. Recently, I have been working with many new colleagues on a Facing Narcissism project funded by the Academy of Finland and I had the opportunity to finally publish the results of this old data,” explained study author Ville Harjunen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki.
“The topic of narcissism and people’s sensitivity to self-threatening negative feedback has interested me for a very long time. Even in my master’s thesis, I studied these questions. The tension between an overly positive self-view and vigilance to negative social feedback is very intriguing as it seems to boost the individual’s social status and position in society but also creates constant friction in social relationships and can therefore result in very opposite negative outcomes.”
The study aimed to investigate the relationship between grandiose narcissism and emotional reactivity to self-threatening evaluations. The researchers used a sample of 57 healthy college students (34 women, 22 men, and 1 omitting gender information) aged between 18 to 44 years old.
The participants were told that the study aimed to explore the role of declarative memory in social situations, and they completed two memory tasks (semantic and episodic). Electrodes were attached to their skin, and they were seated in a chamber in front of a computer screen.
Facial electromyography (fEMG) is a technique used to measure the electrical activity of muscles in the face. Specifically, it involves placing electrodes on specific facial muscles that are known to be associated with different emotional expressions. By measuring the electrical activity of these muscles, researchers can gain insight into the emotional experiences of the individual.
The study had a counterbalanced design. After the memory tasks, participants received performance feedback from two male research assistants (neutral or negative) in a friendly and professional manner. They completed self-reports assessing their performance and cognitive effort during the task, and the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) to report their current affective state. Finally, participants answered questions regarding their subjective judgments of their performance and cognitive effort on nine-point Likert scales.
Negative feedback resulted in greater negative affect and facial muscle activity associated with negative emotions, as expected. However, contrary to what the researchers predicted, there was no significant effect of negative feedback on self-reported arousal or the activity of a muscle associated with smiling (the zygomaticus muscle).
The researchers also found that people with high levels of grandiose narcissism showed a different pattern of emotional response compared to those with lower levels of narcissism. While both groups reported similar levels of negative affect in response to negative feedback, people with high levels of narcissism showed stronger facial muscle reactions associated with anger and frustration.
Specifically, the facial muscle activity in the corrugator supercilii (CS) and orbicularis oculi (OO) muscles was more pronounced in individuals with high levels of grandiose narcissism in response to negative feedback. This suggests that people with high levels of narcissism may be trying to hide their negative emotional response to negative feedback.
“The study shows that people with traits of grandiose narcissism are emotionally sensitive and react strongly to self-threatening feedback regarding their performance,” Harjunen told PsyPost. “However, at least in a lab context where people are aware that their behavior is being monitored, this reactivity occurs in a covert form so that people with these traits do not report feeling more shaken by the negative feedback than others but their emotion-related facial muscle activity is pronounced.”
“Earlier, it has been suggested that emotional reactivity to self-threats is characteristic of people with vulnerable narcissistic traits. Here, our findings show that also grandiose narcissism is associated with stronger emotional reactivity to self-threats.”
When participants received negative feedback, their heart rate actually decreased instead of increased.
“We were surprised by the fact that participants’ heart rate was lower when they received negative feedback than when neutral feedback about their performance was given,” Harjunen said. “This finding may be explained by cardiac defense response driven by parasympathetic downregulation of the cardiac cycle. There are waves of declaration and acceleration in the heart rate when people face something threatening.”
“It is likely that the participants were exhibiting such waves during the one-minute feedback and that the parasympathetic cardiac deceleration was more pronounced in the negative feedback situation due to higher sensory intake. However, I was rather surprised to see the result the first time.”
However, there are potential caveats in interpreting these results, such as the possibility that the muscle activity observed in the study reflects increased auditory attention rather than emotional reactions. Moreover, the obtained interaction effect between narcissistic personality scores and feedback on muscle activity was small. The researchers said future studies could use methods such as neuroimaging and electrophysiology to gain a better understanding of the socio-emotional tensions underlying the interpersonal dimensions of narcissistic personality.
“The biggest caveat related to the interpretation of the facial muscle activity is when the self-reported emotional states do not align with the facial muscle activity,” Harjunen explained. “It is possible that the pronounced activity in orbicularis oculi (eye constriction) and corrugator supercilii (frowning) muscles that we see in grandiose narcissism does not reflect a negative emotional state per se but pronounced attention toward the self-threatening feedback.”
“These things are, however, very hard to tell apart because emotions are deeply entwined with attention-related processes. Also, we see that grandiose narcissism was associated with generally diminished activity in the zygomaticus major muscle that typically activates while smiling. Therefore, the evidence converges towards the interpretation of the facial muscle activity of narcissistic individuals reflects a pronounced negative emotional state.”
The study, “Under the thin skin of narcissus: Facial muscle activity reveals amplified emotional responses to negative social evaluation in individuals with grandiose narcissistic traits“, was authored by Ville J. Harjunen, Elizabeth Krusemark, Saskia Stigzelius, Otto W. Halmesvaara, Mikko Annala, Pentti Henttonen, Ilmari Määttänen, Mia Silfver, Liisa Keltikangas-Järvinen, and Niklas Ravaja.