Abstract
Prior studies have documented how people in general respond to others’ narcissism, but existing research offers few clues about whether and how evaluator narcissism influences judgments of traits associated with narcissism. Participants completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and then evaluated hypothetical target persons. Target narcissism was conveyed through a single trait description (Study 1), a list of traits (Study 2), or Facebook content (Study 3). Narcissistic qualities were reliably viewed unfavorably, but narcissistic participants were comparatively less bothered by target narcissism and less positive in their judgments of targets without narcissistic qualities. In each study, symptoms of the presence or absence of narcissism had less impact on the social judgments of participants who were narcissistic.
When people label someone as a “narcissist,” they are not paying a compliment. Fundamental components of narcissism are aversive almost by definition. Of course, narcissistic behavior may bother some people more than others. Some previous studies have investigated how narcissists are perceived by people in general, and other studies offer insight into narcissists’ views of others; however, the possibility of a relationship between the narcissism of the perceiver and of the person being perceived (i.e., the target) has not been directly tested. We report results of three studies that examined how appraisals of narcissists vary according to the narcissism levels of the appraiser.
Our research focused narrowly on the consequences of grandiose narcissism, a personality trait that encompasses the toxic interpersonal qualities associated with narcissism, which include self-absorption, arrogance, a strong sense of entitlement, and willingness to exploit yet also correlates positively with characteristics such as self-esteem, self-confidence, competitiveness, and extroversion that people often view as appealing or at least appropriate (see Ackerman et al., 2011; Watson & Biderman, 1993, for reviews of adaptive and maladaptive narcissism components). Grandiose narcissism is often distinguished from vulnerable narcissism, an undeniably maladaptive form of narcissism that is often presumed to emerge from an underlying lack of esteem (for reviews of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism differences, see Miller & Campbell, 2008; Pincus & Roche, 2011). Unless otherwise indicated, all variants of the word narcissism in this article refer to grandiose narcissism.
Considering the mixed bag of qualities associated with narcissism, it is not surprising that the evidence regarding how narcissistic qualities are viewed by people in general is also mixed. Some studies have found that narcissists are less popular than others (e.g., Czarna, Dufner, & Clifton, 2014; Heatherton & Vohs, 2000), but other research suggests that individuals’ evaluations of narcissists may be neutral (e.g., Rauthmann, 2012) or even positive (e.g., Carlson, Vazire, & Oltmanns, 2011; Dufner, Rauthmann, Czarna, & Denissen, 2013; Paulhus, Westlake, Calvez, & Harms, 2013)—though people tend to show less tolerance for narcissism in their relationship partners over time (e.g., Back, Schmukle, & Egloff, 2010; Paulhus, 1998).
The evidence strongly suggests that narcissists tend to show a negativity bias in their social evaluations. Compared with others, narcissists like their social partners less (Lamkin, Clifton, Campbell, & Miller, 2014); are more intolerant of others’ imperfections (Sherry, Gralnick, Hewitt, Sherry, & Flett, 2014); and are more disagreeable (e.g., Paulhus & Williams, 2002), adversarial (e.g., Rhodewalt & Morf, 1995), and prone to feeling superior (e.g., Krizan & Bushman, 2011). However, our research was not designed to test how narcissists evaluate other people in general but rather to test whether effects of evaluator narcissism depend on perceived target narcissism.
Potential Interactive Effects of Evaluator and Target Narcissism
Different predictions regarding the nature of the possible interactive relationship between evaluator and target narcissism could be justified from prior evidence. In light of the well-documented correlation between similarity and likeability (e.g., Chen & Kenrick, 2002; Griffitt, 1966; Montoya & Horton, 2012), one could anticipate that narcissists would tolerate or even appreciate kindred narcissistic spirits and would form unfavorable impressions of targets without narcissistic features. Support for this possibility could be drawn from evidence that people with high self-esteem are more attracted to others with high self-esteem (e.g., Leonard, 1975; Lloyd, Paulsen, & Brockner, 1983) and from evidence that narcissists are more romantically attracted to (Campbell, 1999; Tanchotsrinon, Maneesri, & Campbell, 2007) and show less aggression toward (Konrath, Bushman, & Campbell, 2006) others who share their traits. In addition, Exline and Geyer (2004) found that evaluator narcissism predicted more negative attitudes toward others’ expressions of humility, a trait that could be viewed as the antithesis of narcissism.
Still, other research indicates that narcissists might respond unfavorably to fellow narcissists. For example, Taylor and Mettee (1971) highlighted an exception to the similarity–likability principle by showing that hypothetical people described as being obnoxious—a label that fits some aspects of narcissistic behavior—were perceived to be less likable when they also shared other personal characteristics with the evaluators. In addition, Touhey (1977) found that people with high Machiavellianism, a trait correlated with narcissism (O’Boyle, Forsyth, Banks, & McDaniel, 2012), dislike Machiavellian qualities in others. Moreover, one could speculate that encountering symptoms of others’ narcissism could signal a threat to narcissists’ preferred position of dominance, which could trigger a competitive or hostile response (e.g., Bushman & Baumeister, 1998; Horton & Sedikides, 2009).
The possible interactive relationship between evaluator and target narcissism could also take the form of evaluators’ heightened or diminished responsiveness to narcissism displayed by targets. Evidence of narcissists’ interpersonal reactivity (e.g., Rhodewalt, Madrian, & Cheney, 1995; Rhodewalt & Morf, 1998), especially in response to social comparisons (Bogart, Benotsch, & Pavlovic, 2004), suggests that narcissists’ social evaluations might be more responsive to symptoms of others’ narcissism. However, the opposite prediction could also be justified by focusing on the evidence of narcissists’ social insensitivity. Narcissism is associated with low empathy (e.g., Hepper, Hart, & Sedikides, 2014; Watson, Grisham, Trotter, & Biderman, 1984), low concern for others’ well-being (e.g., Bushman, Bonacci, van Dijk, & Baumeister, 2003; Reidy, Foster, & Zeichner, 2010), less social contagion susceptibility (Czarna, Wrobel, Dufner, & Zeigler-Hill, in press), and disinterest in communal priorities (see review by Bosson et al., 2008). Given that narcissists are fundamentally focused on self-enhancement (Morf, Horvath, & Torchetti, 2011; Wallace, 2011), they may simply not care much about others’ narcissism unless it directly threatens their self-enhancement goals. Consistent with this possibility, Lamkin, Clifton, Campbell, and Miller (2014) demonstrated that grandiose individuals were less “discriminating” in filtering narcissists from their social networks. In addition, Kammrath and Scholer (2011) linked high agreeableness (a quality that narcissists do not characteristically possess) with extreme positive judgments of agreeable others and extreme negative judgments of disagreeable others.
Present Research
In sum, we had reason to expect that social appraisals could be affected by the narcissism levels of both the appraiser and the target being appraised, but existing empirical evidence regarding the nature of this relationship was inconclusive. We conducted three studies to directly test how social evaluations are affected by the narcissistic traits of evaluators and evaluation targets. In each study, participants completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI; Raskin & Hall, 1979)—the most commonly used measure of grandiose narcissism—and evaluated hypothetical targets on the basis of traits that conveyed either low or high levels of narcissism.
Study 1
Study 1 minimized conceptual ambiguity by representing hypothetical target individuals with the exact language used in the NPI. Participants evaluated multiple targets, each of which was described by the narcissistic or nonnarcissistic option from a single forced-choice NPI item.
Method
Participants
Undergraduate students from introductory psychology classes participated for course credit (N = 75, 55% female, M age = 18.82). Study 1 statistics exclude one participant who selected the same number option for all scaled questionnaire items, including those that required reverse scoring.
Materials and Procedure
Narcissism measure
After giving informed consent, participants completed the 40-item forced-choice version of the NPI (Raskin & Terry, 1988). Two NPI items were omitted due to a computer programming error. The narcissistic response options for the missing items were “I have a natural talent for influencing people” and “I am an extraordinary person.” The remaining 38 NPI items were still reliably interrelated (Cronbach’s α = .82, M = 14.36, SD = 6.44
Target profiles
After completing the NPI, each participant used a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree and 7 = strongly agree) to report the extent to which he or she had a “positive view” of each of 16 target profiles. Each target profile displayed one forced-choice item pair from the NPI-16 (Ames, Rose, & Anderson, 2006), a short-form version of the NPI. For each NPI-16 pair, high or low narcissism was indicated by an “X” placed in front of either the narcissistic or the nonnarcissistic option, ostensibly by the hypothetical target individual. For example, one narcissistic profile indicated that the target selected “I like to be the center of attention” instead of the alternative option, “I prefer to blend in with the crowd.” Order of the presentation of profiles was determined by random assignment and held constant for each participant. Mean target evaluation scores were computed for the eight target profiles that conveyed narcissism (Cronbach’s α = .84) and the eight that did not (α = .86).
Results and Discussion
Ratings of narcissistic target profiles were less positive (M = 3.81, SD = 0.95) than ratings of nonnarcissistic targets (M = 5.45, SD = 0.85), t(74) = 9.75, p < .001, d = 1.82. Evaluator narcissism was positively correlated with narcissistic target ratings, r(73) = .34, p = .002, and negatively correlated with ratings of nonnarcissistic targets, r(73) = −.32, p = .005.
To explore the interactive relationship between evaluator and target narcissism, we conducted a multilevel regression analysis in Mplus version 6.11 (Muthén & Muthén, 2011) that included one two-level within-subject factor (narcissistic vs. nonnarcissistic profiles) and a between-subject factor comprising a full range of evaluator narcissism scores. Maximum likelihood parameter estimates (MLR) robust to non-independent observations were used. Evaluator narcissism scores were centered about the sample mean. Target narcissism effect estimates should be interpreted as relative to nonnarcissistic profiles. Results revealed an interaction between evaluator and target narcissism, β = 0.24, SE = 0.07, p =.001, indicating that ratings made by narcissistic participants were less affected by target narcissism level than nonnarcissistic participants’ ratings. Figure 1 shows that narcissistic evaluators reported less favorable views of narcissistic targets than nonnarcissistic targets (estimated M difference = 0.99), but nonnarcissistic evaluators were comparatively more negative in their ratings of narcissistic targets and more positive in their ratings of nonnarcissistic targets (estimated M difference = 2.23).

Study 1: Effects of evaluator and target narcissism on ratings of target profiles based on single Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI)-16 items. Estimates for evaluator narcissism represent 1 SD below and above the NPI mean.
Study 1 demonstrated that explicit and unambiguous evidence of another person’s narcissism is unappealing to narcissists and nonnarcissists alike. The outcomes of Study 1 also followed the similarity principle of likability: Nonnarcissistic targets were rated more positively by nonnarcissistic evaluators, and narcissistic targets were viewed less negatively by narcissists than nonnarcissists. However, the level of narcissism projected by targets had more impact on the judgments of evaluators with low rather than high narcissism scores. In advance of our research, one could reasonably have predicted that narcissists’ reactive tendencies would translate into more variability in their evaluations of different types of people but the opposite occurred.
Study 2
Study 2 resembled the design of Study 1, but instead of making single evaluations of targets represented thinly by single traits, participants made several judgments about one narcissistic and one nonnarcissistic target, each represented by 20 traits to provide a more complex hypothetical person portrayal.
Method
Participants
Undergraduate students from introductory psychology courses participated for course credit (N = 81, 59% female, M age = 18.61). All Study 2 statistics exclude one participant who failed to complete several NPI items.
Materials and Procedure
Narcissism measures
After giving informed consent, participants completed the NPI (M = 15.41, SD = 6.31). 1
Target profiles
Participants then evaluated one narcissistic and one nonnarcissistic target profile, each of which was represented by 20 traits that could conceivably be construed as desirable. Fifteen of the traits were derived from the content of NPI items, and all 15 were indicative of either narcissism (e.g., “assertive” and “daring”) or a lack of narcissism (e.g., “modest” and “cooperative”). To reduce the risk of caricature, we rounded out both target profiles with the same five traits that had no direct relevance to narcissism (e.g., “educated” and “funny”).
Participants were instructed to use the profile traits as cues to form a mental representation of the hypothetical individuals, and they were encouraged to imagine additional characteristics that were not included in the profiles but might be true of the individual. Order of the presentation of narcissistic and nonnarcissistic targets was counterbalanced across participants. The dependent variable was the combined (mean) response to items that required participants to use a 7-point scale (1 = strongly disagree and 7 = strongly agree) to evaluate each target in response to the following statements: “I would like to be friends with Person A/B,” “I would enjoy having Person A/B as a roommate,” “I would enjoy being teammates with Person A/B,” “I would enjoy collaborating with Person A/B,” and “Person A/B would be a worthy romantic relationship partner” (Cronbach’s α = .80 for narcissistic target evaluations and .65 for nonnarcissistic target evaluations).
Target profile validation
To confirm that the Study 2 target profiles effectively represented high and low narcissism, we administered a pilot study via Amazon Mechanical Turk. Survey respondents (N = 155, US$0.30 incentive) viewed either the narcissistic or the nonnarcissistic target profile (between-subject factor) and then used a 5-point scale (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree) to indicate the extent to which the person depicted would agree with 13 first-person statements that represented the narcissistic forced-choice options from the NPI-13 (Gentile et al., 2013), a short-form version of the NPI. As expected, nonnarcissistic targets received lower agreement ratings (M = 2.13, SD = 0.56) than narcissistic targets (M = 4.18, SD = 0.45), t(153) = 25.33, p < .001, d = 4.05. In addition, participants generally agreed that the collection of traits “seemed realistic, in the sense that they could describe an actual person” (overall, M = 4.15 [1–5 scale], SD = 0.74). Realism ratings did not differ significantly between narcissistic and nonnarcissistic targets.
Results and Discussion
Ratings of narcissistic target profiles were less positive (M = 4.47, SD = 1.24) than ratings of nonnarcissistic targets (M = 5.75, SD = 0.69), t(80) = 8.45, p < .001, d = 1.28. Evaluator narcissism was negatively correlated with ratings of nonnarcissistic profiles, r(79) = −.24, p = .03, but was positively correlated with narcissistic profile ratings, r(79) = .35, p = .001.
A multilevel regression analysis using the same design reported for Study 1 replicated the interaction between evaluator NPI scores and target narcissism, β = 0.26, SE = 0.07, p < .001. Narcissistic evaluators’ target ratings were less affected by target narcissism levels than nonnarcissists’ ratings. The model estimated means displayed in Figure 2 show that narcissistic participants reported less favorable views of narcissistic targets than nonnarcissistic targets (M difference = 0.75), but nonnarcissistic participants were comparatively much more negative in their evaluations of narcissistic targets and slightly more positive in their ratings of nonnarcissistic targets (M difference = 1.98).

Study 2: Effects of evaluator and target narcissism on ratings of target profiles based on 20 traits. Estimates for evaluator narcissism represent 1 SD below and above the Narcissistic Personality Inventory mean.
To ensure that differences in judgments of narcissistic and nonnarcissistic targets were not dependent on the contrast created by presenting profiles within subject, we also conducted a simple regression analysis that treated target narcissism as a between-subject variable by only including evaluations of the first target viewed by each participant. This analysis replicated the interaction effect, β = 0.29, SE = 0.09, p = .001. In summary, the effects of evaluator and target narcissism closely mirrored the trends observed in Study 1.
Study 3
Study 3 tested whether the interaction outcome observed in the first two studies would hold up if the narcissism level of targets was conveyed less explicitly. Targets consisted of Facebook webpage screenshots that contained clues about the authors’ narcissism level. Previous research has found that narcissists tend to display a high number of Facebook “friends” (e.g., Mehdizadeh, 2010; Ong et al., 2011) and make frequent status updates (e.g., Carpenter, 2012; Panek, Nardis, & Konrath, 2013). We conveyed target narcissism in Study 3 by varying the number of friends, the frequency of status updates, and the nature of text content that appeared in the Facebook profiles.
Method
Participants
Undergraduate students from introductory psychology classes participated for course credit (N = 89, 70% female, M age = 19.70). 2
Materials and Procedure
Narcissism measure
Participants completed the NPI after giving informed consent and before rating Facebook profiles. Study 3 analyses exclude 1 NPI item that included an extra word due to a programming error which may have affected interpretation of that item. The narcissistic option for this item should have read, “I get upset when people don’t notice how I look when I go out in public.” The remaining 39 NPI items were reliably interrelated (Cronbach’s α = .84, M = 16.02, SD = 6.84).
Facebook profiles
We created four Facebook profiles to represent hypothetical individuals. The target profiles were one-page screenshots that included content symptomatic of either high or low narcissism. We did not attempt to match Facebook behavior norms or to convince participants that the profiles were authentic. The two narcissistic profiles (“Joe Evans” and “Mary Smith”) displayed high numbers of friends (1,238 and 1,675), time gaps between status updates ranging from 5 min to 4 hr, and narcissistic content in three of the five status posts, for example, “I love me some me” and “If I ran this place things would go much smoother.” The other two posts contained content nondiagnostic of narcissism, for example, “I really need a nap” and “I wish I could go running more.” Conversely, the two nonnarcissistic profiles (“John Wilson” and “Jane Miller”) displayed a lower number of friends (146 and 202), time gaps between status updates ranging from 8 hr to 3 weeks, and nonnarcissistic content in three of the five status posts (e.g., “Modesty is the best policy” and “I wonder if I am good enough?”). For all profiles, the space on the page where photos or other images would normally be displayed was blacked out.
Evaluations for both narcissistic and nonnarcissistic targets were calculated as the mean response to 3 items: “I feel that I could be friends with this individual in real life,” “I feel that I would like this person as a roommate,” and “I feel that I would like this person as a teammate” (1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree; Cronbach’s α = .85 for both narcissistic and nonnarcissistic targets). 3
Facebook profile validation
To confirm that the Study 3 target profiles represented high and low narcissism, we administered a pilot study via Amazon Mechanical Turk that followed the procedure of the Study 2 pilot study (N = 166, US$0.25 incentive). As expected, nonnarcissistic profiles were judged to be less narcissistic (M = 2.52 [1–5 scale], SD = 0.78) than narcissistic profiles (M = 3.91, SD = 0.61), t(164) = 12.93, p < .001, d = 1.99. In addition, participants generally agreed (using a 5-point scale) that they could “imagine (target name) as a real person” (M = 4.23, SD = 0.69) and that the profile content “seemed realistic, in the sense that it plausibly could have come from a real person’s Facebook page” (M = 4.15, SD = 0.77). Realism ratings did not differ significantly between narcissistic and nonnarcissistic targets.
Results and Discussion
Both narcissistic and nonnarcissistic targets received negative evaluations relative to the scale midpoint. The unpopularity of nonnarcissistic targets in Study 3 might be attributable to their having violated Facebook norms by explicitly expressing humility (for evidence that self-deprecation is more rare on Facebook than in real life, see Zhao, Grasmuch, & Martin, 2008). Nonetheless, ratings of narcissistic target profiles were still comparatively less positive (M = 2.22, SD = 0.80) than ratings of nonnarcissistic targets (M = 2.56, SD = 0.83), t(88) = 3.22, p = .002, d = .42. Evaluator narcissism was negatively correlated with ratings of nonnarcissistic profiles, r(87) = −.32, p = .002, but was uncorrelated with narcissistic profile ratings, r(87) = .04.
To examine how evaluations of target profiles were affected by the narcissism depicted in the profile and the narcissism level of participants, we followed the multilevel regression analysis strategy used in the first two studies. Results revealed an interaction between evaluator and target narcissism levels, β = 0.19, SE = 0.06, p = .001, indicating that the influence of target narcissism varied according to participants’ narcissism level. 4 The estimated means displayed in Figure 3 show that narcissistic evaluators again gave relatively similar ratings of narcissistic targets and nonnarcissistic targets (M difference = 0.13), whereas nonnarcissistic participants evaluated narcissistic targets less favorably than nonnarcissistic targets (M difference = 0.53). 5

Study 3: Effects of evaluator and target narcissism on ratings of target profiles based on Facebook content. Estimates for evaluator narcissism represent 1 SD below and above the Narcissistic Personality Inventory mean.
General Discussion
Our research demonstrates that predicting effects of narcissism on social judgment requires consideration of the narcissism levels of both the evaluator and the person being evaluated. Narcissistic targets were consistently evaluated more negatively than nonnarcissistic targets, and narcissism level similarity between perceiver and target was positively correlated with evaluation favorability for nonnarcissistic targets in each study and for narcissistic targets in two of the three studies. But the most novel contribution of this research is the finding that target narcissism reliably had less impact on the evaluations made by participants who were relatively narcissistic. Compared with nonnarcissistic evaluators, narcissists responded less positively to nonnarcissistic targets and less negatively to narcissistic targets.
In a different context, narcissists’ relative insensitivity to differences in other people could be construed as evidence of failure to identify or pay attention to these differences, but this interpretation is challenged by the fact that participants were spoon-fed target descriptions. The observed pattern of interaction between evaluator and target narcissism has no close parallel in the grandiose narcissism literature, but it aligns well with studies by Kammrath and Scholer (2011), in which disagreeable people were relatively less bothered by others’ antisocial behavior and relatively less impressed by others’ prosocial behavior (see also Suls, Martin, & David, 1998). 6
Prior research linking narcissism with disagreeableness, reactance, and interpersonal hostility is suggestive of social intolerance, yet the most negative target evaluations in our research were provided by participants with low narcissism scores. Much of the evidence linking narcissism with interpersonal reactivity and hostility has been found in contexts where narcissists were coping with some form of threat (e.g., Kernis & Sun, 1994; Schnieders & Gore, 2011; Stucke & Sporer, 2002), but our findings suggest that narcissism may only predict negative attitudes toward others in contexts where there is not much to complain about (e.g., when not socializing with extremely narcissistic people) or in situations that challenge narcissists’ grandiose self-image.
Several possibilities for future research seem promising in light of our findings and the limitations of the methods by which they were obtained. For example, our studies did not attempt to identify the precise thought processes and affective responses that produced the observed differences in evaluations. It is also unclear whether narcissists show relative tolerance of antisocial qualities in general and relative antipathy toward prosocial qualities in general, or whether narcissists only respond uniquely to qualities that closely match or conflict with their own traits.
Another logical extension of the present research would involve testing how the relationship between target and perceiver narcissism varies across different social and situational dimensions in both controlled and real-world contexts. Narcissism could be construed as a critical shortcoming in some circumstances and an asset in others (e.g., Campbell, 2001; Paulhus et al., 2013). For example, manifestations of narcissism could be interpreted as appropriate assertiveness or, alternatively, as unwelcomed aggression (Kufner, Nestler, & Back, 2013; Nevicka, De Hoogh, Van Vianen, & Ten Velden, 2013). The dimensions of our target evaluation measures did not stray far from the equivalent of generalized favorability ratings, but probing evaluations in more specialized situational contexts with studies with larger sample sizes could isolate exceptions to the trends highlighted in our studies. We are especially interested in learning whether narcissism would still predict more tolerance of narcissism if others’ narcissism was manifested in behavior that directly threatened or otherwise antagonized the evaluator (for evidence that narcissists are less inclined to forgive others’ transgressions, see Brown, 2004; Exline, Baumeister, Bushman, Campbell, & Finkel, 2004). 7
In closing, we raise two points about the value of our research. First, although the artificiality of the evaluation targets in the present studies is a transparent limitation, our findings cannot easily be dismissed as irrelevant to real-life circumstances because people often evaluate unfamiliar others on the basis of abstract and impersonal cues, and these evaluations may sometimes be consequential. It is important to know how narcissists respond to the experience of direct interaction with real people, but it is not unimportant to know how narcissists respond to people represented through narrative alone. Second, our approach of representing narcissism explicitly, particularly in the first two studies, leaves little room for alternative interpretations of participants’ target evaluations. Narcissism is an unusually complex personality construct, and some of the elements that define narcissism are not salient to observers (Malkin, Zeigler-Hill, Barry, & Southard, 2013). Previous investigations of how people evaluate narcissists they have actually met have not usually clarified the extent to which narcissism per se is driving perceiver judgment—narcissists may be liked or disliked, despite their narcissism rather than because of it. The present research enhances the clarity of our understanding of the extent to which narcissism influences social evaluations.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
We thank Geoff Cole, Jon Gallegos, Taylor Gibson, Phillippa Sands, Ben Scheiner, and Stephanie Simon for their important contributions to this research.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
