I feel smart today! A daily diary study on narcissism and self-assessed intelligence

Typically, intelligence is considered to determine the success and welfare of an individual. Although the objective level of intelligence is not associated with narcissism, relations to self-assessed intelligence (SAI) have been repeatedly reported. However, most research neglected both the multifaceted nature of narcissism (i.e., the fact that narcissism encompasses agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic facets) and the well-documented existence of within-person fluctuations of narcissism. In the current daily diary study (N = 176; N = 3975 total observations), we examined the dynamics of relationships between various facets of narcissism (i.e., agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic) and SAI assessed during 28 consecutive days. The results showed that although the varying narcissism facets did not meaningfully correlate with the objective level of intelligence, agentic narcissism was positively associated with SAI, while neurotic narcissism was negatively associated to it on the between-person level. At the within-person level, only the agentic facet remained a significant and positive predictor. Antagonistic narcissism was unrelated to SAI either on the between- and within-person levels, but it was positively associated with gross variability and instability of SAI. Our study confirms the robust association between agentic narcissism and SAI by showing that on moments when people rated themselves as higher in agentic narcissism, they also perceived themselves as smarter. Our findings also highlight the role of antagonistic narcissism in its ability to predict instability of self-perceptions.

通常，智力被视为衡量个人成功与福祉的关键因素。尽管客观智力水平与自恋倾向并无直接关联，但关于自评智力（SAI）与自恋关系的报道却屡见不鲜。然而，大多数研究忽视了自恋的多面性（即自恋包含了代理、对抗和神经质三个方面）以及自恋在个体内部存在的波动性。在当前为期28天的日常日记研究中（N = 176；总观察次数为3975次），我们探讨了自恋各个方面（即代理、对抗和神经质）与在连续28天中评估的SAI之间的动态关系。结果显示，尽管不同的自恋方面与客观智力水平并无显著相关性，代理自恋与SAI呈正相关，而神经质自恋则在个体间层面上与之呈负相关。在个体内部层面上，仅代理方面保持了显著的正面预测作用。对抗自恋在个体间和个体内部层面上均与SAI无关联，但它与SAI的总体波动性和不稳定性呈正相关。本研究通过证实，当人们自评代理自恋水平较高时，他们也感知到自己的智力较高，从而证实了代理自恋与SAI之间稳固的关联。此外，我们的发现还突出了对抗自恋在预测自我感知不稳定性的作用。