Jauk Emanuel, Kanske Philipp
Clinical Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
Department of Psychology, University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
Personal Neurosci. 2021 May 28;4:e3. doi: 10.1017/pen.2021.1. eCollection 2021.
Narcissism is a Janusian personality construct, associated with both grandiose self-assuredness and dominance, as well as vulnerable insecurity and reactivity. Central questions of intra- and interpersonal functioning in narcissism are still a matter of debate. Neuroscience could help to understand the paradoxical patterns of experience and behavior beyond the limitations of self-reports. We provide a systematic review of 34 neuroscience studies on grandiose, vulnerable, pathological narcissism, and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), spanning experimental investigations of intra- and interpersonal mechanisms, research on neurophysiological and neuroendocrine aspects of baseline function, and brain structural correlates. While neuroscience has scarcely directly studied vulnerable narcissism, grandiose narcissism is associated with heightened vigilance to ego threat and stress responses following ego threat, as well as heightened stress indicators in baseline measures. Such responses are not commonly observed in self-reports, highlighting the potential of neuroscience to augment our understanding of self-regulatory dynamics in narcissism. Interpersonal functioning is characterized by deficits in social-affective processes. Both involve altered activity within the salience network, pointing to a double dissociation regarding the expression of narcissism and self/other oriented situational focus. Findings are summarized in an integrative model providing testable hypotheses for future research along with methodological recommendations.
自恋是一种具有两面性的人格结构,既与夸大的自信和支配性相关,也与脆弱的不安全感和反应性相关。自恋中个体内部和人际功能的核心问题仍是一个有争议的话题。神经科学有助于超越自我报告的局限性,理解这种矛盾的体验和行为模式。我们对34项关于夸大、脆弱、病理性自恋及自恋型人格障碍(NPD)的神经科学研究进行了系统综述,涵盖了对个体内部和人际机制的实验研究、基线功能的神经生理和神经内分泌方面的研究以及脑结构相关性研究。虽然神经科学几乎没有直接研究脆弱型自恋,但夸大型自恋与对自我威胁的更高警觉性、自我威胁后的应激反应以及基线测量中更高的应激指标相关。这种反应在自我报告中并不常见,凸显了神经科学在增强我们对自恋中自我调节动态理解方面的潜力。人际功能的特点是社会情感过程存在缺陷。两者都涉及突显网络内活动的改变,表明自恋表达与自我/他人导向的情境焦点之间存在双重分离。研究结果总结在一个综合模型中,为未来研究提供了可检验的假设以及方法学建议。