Differentiating Narcissism Modes in Everyday Life: The Role of Situation Perception

Although situations themselves are objective in nature, each individual could experience same situation differently. Within the current manuscript, in an ecological momentary study during which N = 502 participants provided responses seven times per day for seven consecutive days (k = 19 108 observations), we investigate the mutual relationship between momentary narcissism and situation perception in naturalistic setting. Results of the tested dynamic structural equation models revealed a considerable amount of bi-directional interplay in which momentary increases in narcissism were related to subsequent increases in how participants perceived situations. Furthermore, using the dynamic latent class analysis we explored how these situations are perceived during specific narcissism modes. We distinguished four types of narcissism modes: (1) non-narcissistic, (2) agentic, (3) neurotic, (4) antagonistic, and demonstrate how they differ in terms of situation perception. All narcissism modes were characterized of seeing situation as more deceptive when compared to non-narcissistic mode. We also found specific patterns of perceiving situations for each mode. These results, on the one hand support claims on the default nature of agentic, and on the other, neurotic narcissism and highlight the reactive nature of antagonistic narcissism.