Think about the last time you were in an online meeting or lecture. Let's imagine you had your web camera turned on and your image was visible on the right-hand side of the screen. How much time did you spend looking at yourself, and did that impair your ability to concentrate on the meeting information?
In our research, my colleagues and I considered the possibility that those who are high in narcissism (the tendency to be self-focused, egotistical, and care little about others) have worse memory for what they have seen and heard than those who are low in narcissism. If people focus more on themselves, they may spend less time attending to other information.
Narcissists in an Online Lecture
In our research, we found that individuals higher in narcissism were more likely to focus on themselves during an online lecture, which hurt their ability to remember information. Our method went like this: Participants were seated at a computer and were told that they would be watching an online lecture. The webcam was turned on such that participants could see themselves on the bottom right-hand side of the screen. After watching the lecture, we tested the participants' memory for the information. Later, we watched the webcam videos and timed how often participants looked at themselves in the webcam. We found that those with higher narcissism paid more attention to themselves in the webcam and, in turn, scored lower on the memory test. Thus, as long as their eyes are on the screen, it's a zero-sum situation: spending time attending to other information versus focusing on themselves.
Next, Social Information versus Objects
We further tested this idea by exploring whether those who are high in narcissism are worse at recalling social information such as faces, versus non-social information like houses and cars.
First, we explored how well individuals with high (versus low) narcissism could recognize previously seen faces. To do this, we measured people's narcissistic traits and then they completed a recognition memory test, including a learning and recognition phase. First, participants viewed 40 pictures of people's faces for 3 seconds each. Next, they saw another 80 photos of people's faces, half of which they saw previously, while the other half were new. Then, they guessed which faces they'd seen before. Although people are pretty good at recognizing faces, in general, we found that those who were more narcissistic were worse at being able to recognize others.
Next, we wanted to see whether this memory deficit extended to non-social stimuli, like household objects, houses, and cars. Using a similar memory task, we found that individuals high in narcissism had worse recognition memory for household objects, houses, and cars than individuals who were low in narcissism.
In sum, we found that individuals with high narcissism struggled to remember other people and also the world around them. This research highlights how our personality traits can impact the way we recognize, recall, and remember information.
For Further Reading
Giacomin, M., Brinton, C., & Rule, N. O. (2022). Narcissistic individuals exhibit poor recognition memory. Journal of Personality, 90(5), 675-689. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12690
Miranda Giacomin is an assistant professor at MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She is a personality psychologist whose research focuses on "dark" personality traits and social perception.
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