PhD Project
My PhD project, completed within the social neuroscience department at the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, investigated narcissistic personality traits and how these traits were mediated by cognitive, emotional and social behaviors. It was a large study with over 200 participants which I devised from the ground up. I published articles based on my findings, one of which was the first study examining the wandering mind of narcissistic individuals and the other used behavioral economic game paradigms to examine narcissisic social behaviors. Apart from these two research articles you can find below, I also wrote a monography which included a chapter on how narcissistic egocentric biases modulate the social emotions of envy and Schadenfruede. You can read a copy of the monography here.
Where the Narcissistic Mind Wanders
I conducted the first study examining the wandering mind of narcissistic individuals as part of my PhD research. We measured not only the amount that narcissistic inviduals mind-wandered, but also the content of their thoughts. My findings demonstrated that by looking at the pattern of internally generated thoughts and feelings we can come to explain externally exhibited behavior of complex personality traits. This challenges the current methods of identifying personality disorders and questions the relationship between internally generated worlds and externally observable behaviors/realities.
After my PhD, I was so inspired by mind-wandering research that I decided to investigate it through the fields of art and design.
More about Mind-wandering and Design
Social Decision Making in Narcissism
Given the increase in narcissistic traits over the past years, it is important to recognize how these interpersonal problems aparent in narcissistic individuals come to impinge on the social liberties of others. Using behavioral economic paradigms, I examined how interpersonal traits, attitudes, and emotions mediated behavioral differences in narcissistic individuals. What we found was that higher trait narcissism led to lower generosity, even in situations where the individual could face punishment. This finding was mediated by lower perspective-taking abilities. We also found that individuals with higher levels of trait narcissism were more prone to punish others, and this retaliation behavior was in part driven by increased feelings of anger.