A piece by Joseph Brean that I read recently displayed the headline New hope for narcissists: New Canadian study suggests there may be a cure for self-centred[sic] grandiosity after all. My first thought was “I doubt it.”

The press release for this study is pretty accurate and, although I have some criticisms of the study, the journal article doesn’t make the dubious claims found in this piece. However, I will say that it’s a little hard to tell if Brean is fully responsible because it is unclear whether he interviewed the scientists who wrote the article himself. Even if he did, it’s hard to know what that interview looked like. I’ve been on the other side of such interviews and usually the end product is a gross misrepresentation of what I’ve said.

This piece also brought to mind the issue that free and easy access to original sources has some serious trade-offs. Laypersons often misinterpret studies (hell, scientists often do) and in communities such as skepticism, some of those laypersons speak those misinterpretations on stages with an air of authority. But more importantly, some calling themselves science writers misunderstand, cherry-pick, overgeneralize, over-extrapolate, and otherwise misrepresent the implications of findings, especially those in the social sciences. With the vast majority of the public (including a lot of scientists short on time and resources) getting most of their science news from non-scientists and trusting those sources, I find this to be a bit of a problem.

So let’s take a look at the statements made in this piece and what I think is wrong with them, given the original study. The National Post piece introduces the study this way:

…narcissist is usually described as the product of a long and complicated psychological development. Like hypochondriacs, narcissists are made, not born.

New research out of Wilfrid Laurier University, however, suggests narcissism might be simpler than that. More than just a moral failing or psychiatric symptom, narcissism might reflect a basic mechanical failure of the brain’s natural tendency to mimic.

Um, no. No, the research does not suggest that, nor do I believe that descriptions of narcissism imply that it’s all about parenting. Most disorders, including personality disorders, appear to be the result of a complex interplay of environment and genetics.

But where the author really goes off track is in the next sentence:

Intriguingly, it also suggests that narcissism’s opposite, empathy, might even improve with practice.

Um, what?

When I read the press release, I saw nothing in it that even hints at practice effects, so either Brean (the author) actually read (and misinterpreted) the article or he gleaned this bad information from the interview to which he refers. Or perhaps he just made it up because he thought he understood the research. Who knows?

Then there’s a quote of the lead author. Obhi, which reads, “Narcissists don’t imitate automatically.”

If that’s a quote, I hope it was taken out of context, because it reads as a statement of fact, a given, when it is merely one possible explanation for the findings, and one that does not appear in the journal article. In fact, it contradicts the findings and even the title of the journal article: Automatic Imitation is Reduced in Narcissists. This is a poorly-chosen title for at least two reasons that I will discuss below.

So what can we reasonably take from this study? Well, let me first summarize the study.

Obhi, Hogeveen, Giocomin, and Jordon conducted a rather simple study with a final sample of 24 subjects. The subjects performed a task which involved responding to a cue by lifting one of two fingers off of the keyboard. The cues were embedded in images of hands in which one of the fingers is raised. For some trials, the cue matched the position of the hand in the picture (e.g., the picture showed the index finger raised and the cue instructed the subject to raise their index finger) and in some trials the cue was incongruent with the picture (e.g.,  the picture showed the index finger raised and the cue instructed the subject to raise their middle finger).

This task is a paradigm that many readers will be familiar with, even if you don’t recognize it immediately. It is similar to the Stroop Task, the Simon Task, and the task used in Implicit Attribution/Association Tests.

Essentially, the task involves suppressing an automatic response–going against one’s initial, automatic response to a stimulus. For example, the classic Stroop Task involves identifying the color of ink in which a word is printed. The trick is that the words the participant is looking at name various colors. Nearly everyone will take longer to name or respond to the ink color when it is different from the word than when the word is the color of the ink.

The Stroop Test. It takes longer to identify the ink color when a color word does not match the ink color (bottom) than when it does (top).

This well-established effect demonstrates how automatic reading can be. Automatic behaviors are those which require few cognitive resources and are sometimes performed without much awareness. Automatic responses are often very difficult to “shut off”. When we attempt to perform a similar task which competes, the automatic response must be actively suppressed. This is what happens in the Stroop Task; we must suppress the response of reading the word in order to identify its ink color. The differences in reaction time between color-congruent and color-incongruent trials are a good measure of how much the automatic task interferes with the primary task.

The Simon Task and Implicit Attribution tests take advantage of something we call mirror responses. Research has confirmed that we see someone do something (e.g., as simple as raising a hand), our brains automatically respond with activity which is very similar to what we might see if we were performing the task ourselves. This response has many advantages, including facilitating joint attention. Joint attention is demonstrated when you move your eyes to see what someone else is looking at.

Many automatic tasks such as reading are acquired through lots and lots of practice, but not all. Some, like joint attention, are probably innate reflexes. Mirror responses are probably a mixture of both.

Obhi and colleagues also asked participants to complete a short version of the NPI [Narcissistic Personality Inventory] and divided them into two groups (“high” and “low”) based on their NPI scores. They found greater differences in reaction times (RTs) between congruent and incongruent trials among those in the low narcissism group than among those in the high narcissism group. In other words, participants who scored higher in narcissism demonstrated less interference than those who scored low in narcissism. Even more pronounced, however, were the differences in accuracy. Those high in narcissism erred in about 5.3% of the trials while the error rate for those low in narcissism was more than 12%.

As an aside, remember that quote about narcissists not imitating automatically? Well, the findings suggest otherwise. There certainly was an interference effect for both groups. Those high in narcissism did indeed respond more quickly and with fewer errors when the cues matched the images. Furthermore, the title of the article was Automatic Imitation is Reduced in Narcissists, yet they did not study narcissists. Subjects were not selected for their NPI scores and no diagnoses were recorded. The participants in the “high” group were simply those whose NPI scores were in the top half of the subjects tested.

The authors discussed possible explanations for these findings thoroughly. Essentially, the best explanation they give is that those high in narcissism more easily suppress mirror responses. This could be due to greater self-regulation or it could be that mirror responses are not as automatic. I cannot account for the decision to title the paper with one of those explanations, except that they dismissed the self-regulation hypothesis with a non sequitur.

What I can say for certain is that the findings do not suggest that narcissism is a product of poor mirror responses. They also do not suggest that practicing such responses, which are largely learned implicitly, would make them more automatic or make the individual more empathetic and less narcissistic. Neither of these hypotheses is impossible, but neither is likely, either.

The authors also acknowledged many of the study’s limitations, including the relatively small sample size, but my reaction to this study remains mixed. On the one hand, I applaud these researchers because although it seems that this area should have been well-studied, it isn’t. On the other hand, this is a very simple study to execute and the paper has four authors, yet they completely missed the opportunity to ensure strong findings by putting in just a little bit more work.

The study would be improved leaps and bounds by running a larger sample and testing whether self-regulation or motivation were factors. The latter can be easily accomplished by including a condition with non-social context (e.g., arrows instead of fingers). Furthermore, they could have pre-screened the subject pool and recruited only those who scored exceptionally high or exceptionally low in narcissism, thus raising their power tremendously.

That said, these findings are consistent with what we know about narcissism. A key feature of narcissism is reduced empathy and it stands to reason that reactions to the actions of others would be more automatic in those with greater empathy.

In the discussion section of every study is a laundry list of possible explanations and implications for the study’s findings, but most of these are speculation and usually labeled quite clearly as such by the authors. This does not seem to stop laypersons and “science writers” from accepting the speculations they find most interesting or desirable.

In this case, the implications of the study for a behavioral test of empathy are much more plausible than those for treatment of narcissism.

h/t Tim Farley of WhatsTheHarm.net and Skeptools.

Obhi SS, Hogeveen J, Giacomin M, & Jordan CH (2013). Automatic Imitation Is Reduced in Narcissists. Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance PMID: 23957308

Tuesday I returned home from my third Dragon*Con, “the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the universe!” I’m not a big fan of crowds, so I probably would not choose to attend such an event without getting something significant out of it. In this case, I certainly do.

For those new to the community (and this blog), Skepticism is well-represented at Dragon*Con thanks to Derek Colanduno and Robynn (Swoopy) McCarthy of Skepticality. Derek is the director for Skeptrack, the skeptic fan track at Dragon*Con, with the help of Swoopy (who directs the podcasting track) and a number of awesome staff. The track began as a few talks/panels on the Science Track and grew quickly, claiming a large room of its own. Equipment on loan from AburptMedia, along with some handy technicians (who, along with Derek, Swoopy, and the rest of the staff, donate their time) make it possible to stream the Skeptrack content in one’s home on another continent.

This year I participated in five events, including one on the Science Track. This was half as many as last year, so I was able to attend many more of the other talks and panels. But don’t get me wrong – I am quite satisfied that my work was productive and was very glad to be a spectator as others, particularly Phil Plait and Pamela Gay, appeared to run from room to room and talk themselves hoarse as I did at D*C 2010.

I particularly enjoyed a “quiz show” hosted by Brian Thompson called Wait! Wait! Don’t Fool Me! with contestants Phil Plait, Rebecca Watson, George Hrab, and Blake Smith. Tears were streaming down my face, I laughed so hard. Another great show was a series of cool science demos which reminded me of my childhood visits to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and the Museum of Science in Boston. Matt Lowry walked on glass! Here’s a short video of some of what I saw:
 

A panel about activism was mostly excellent, with D.J. Grothe echoing some of the concerns about which I have written recently, but a few statements rubbed me the wrong way. In particular, Brian Brushwood appeared to advocate for “trying anything” without thought to whether it would accomplish any goals or finding out whether it’s been done before by someone who can offer advice. We need innovation, but careless abandon is dangerous and wasteful. Resources are limited and risks are always involved. Another point that was raised was that many people new to skepticism are concerned primarily with issues of religion. I fail to see the relevance of this point. All of the major organizations defend science and science education (e.g., evolution). All of the major organizations debunk testable claims with religious content (e.g., faith healing). Most importantly, however, there are many atheist organizations for those who would like to attack religion or make religion a focus. The idea that defending the focus and scope of skepticism somehow ties the hands of individuals is a bit silly. All of the major skeptic organizations limit their missions to testable claims for reasons which have nothing to do with the threat level or pervasiveness of the claim. The focus on evidence, not conclusions, is a matter of scientific integrity. But of course I have said all of this before.

Two other talks that did not disappoint were given by Genie Scott and Jonathan Strickland of How Stuff Works. Scott gave a fascinating history of creationism and Strickland covered consumer skepticism of tech products. Both were excellent.

A quick summary of the events in which I participated:

The Surprising Science of Self-Esteem – I admit that I was a bit nervous about the attendance for this talk, even though it was a terrific time slot (Friday night at 7pm) on the Science Track. It isn’t the kind of title that would attract me, but my hope was that some of the audience would be deterred from some of the self-esteem boosting BS that I’ve seen, which was more likely if they were there expecting to hear about it. I also pimped the talk to all of the friends I could find beforehand. It’s a topic I have spent a great deal of time with recently and I put quite a bit of work into the material for this talk. Of course the track itself is a draw and the room was packed as always.

I opened by warning the audience that I had misled them a bit. I was planning to talk about self-esteem, but more of the hour would be devoted to something related, but different: narcissism. I do not know if anyone was disappointed; unfortunately, an hour is just not enough time to cover the topic the way I’d wanted to cover it and there was no time for Q & A. Judging by the response (and the sharp victory cry of “YES!” from one audience member when I said, “If you were hoping for a motivational speech, you’ll be disappointed”), most in the audience were glad they stayed.

I will be writing about the topic and my talk in a series of blog posts. In the meantime, a few signs that you might be a narcissist:

• Your name is part of the title and/or URL of your blog (unless you are a best-selling author).
• Your resume is padded with exaggerated or imaginary accomplishments.
• You are as concerned with what your date is wearing as you are your own appearance.
• You believe that you can help others improve their appearance (makeover!) and you are not a hairdresser.
• You celebrate a win by yelling “In your face!” at your opponent rather than “Good game”.
• Your Facebook photo albums (other than your profile pics) include more pictures with you than without you, especially if the pictures are of you alone.
• You brag, especially when you’ve receive a compliment or two from people who are either biased (family and friends) or otherwise not in a position to judge.
• You equate criticism with disrespect or insults. Narcissists do not handle rejection or criticism well and many become angry and aggressive in response.
• You often park in handicapped spaces or red zones, cut in line, cram into elevators before letting people out, block isles and walkways, etc. Entitlement is very, very highly correlated with narcissism.
• You wear clothing with your own likeness on them.
• You have any bumper stickers or social media graphics like those below.

Education/Debunking: What’s the Difference? –  JREF president D.J. Grothe moderated and the panelists were myself, JREF education director Michael Blanford, Skeptical Teacher Matt Lowry, Podblack Cat Kylie Sturgess, and IIG-West’s Brian Hart. I think that we agreed that ‘debunking’ was helpful in education and that teachers do not need to choose between facts and methods. Usually, teaching facts and debunking claims is best accomplished by discussing how we know what we know (empirical testing) and demonstrating that particular feats (e.g., apparent mind reading) can be accomplished without supernatural forces.

On the Ledge – Moderated by Derek Colanduno, this panel was originally planned as a discussion of the independent film The Ledge, but the film’s writer/director, Matthew Chapman, was forced to cancel at the last minute. Although the film came up, the panel, which included D.J. Grothe, NCSE executive director Eugenie Scott, Margaret Downey of The Freethought Society, and myself, focused on the definition of skepticism as well as the missions and scopes of the organizations promoting skepticism, secularism, and atheism.

I believe we agreed on the overlapping, but separate roles and goals of these organizations as well as the reasons demarcations between them exist. It is about more than focus and the best use of resources. It is a matter of maintaining integrity. Something that Genie Scott said stuck with me. She noted that we each have ideologies which we cannot and should not ignore; they make us who we are. However, these ideologies (about which we do not all agree) must be set aside in the pursuit of knowledge because they affect the way that we reason and make decisions (as the literature in my field has clearly shown). This is precisely the argument made in regard to the scope of skepticism (the broader scope, anyway): political, religious, and other ideologies carry with them the baggage of untestable claims, non-empirical conclusions, and conclusions which are arrived at through biased views of evidence.

Very Superstitious… – Moderated by Kylie Sturgess, panelists were me, Atlanta Skeptics Stephen King (a Stephen King, not the Stephen King) and Robert Blaskiewicz, and Skeptic Neurologist Steve Novella. We heard some funny stories about some of the more interesting superstitions which are widely (or narrowly) practiced and discussed the origins of superstitions as a natural product of the pattern- and control- seeking human brain.

Token Skeptic Podcast – I participated in a live recording of Kylie Sturgess’s podcast, along with Derek Colanduno and Steve Novella. It was the last day of Dragon*Con and Kylie was the only Australian in attendance this year. In a departure from the usual serious science and skepticism Kylie produces, she took the opportunity to abuse the Americans. In the first five minutes, she managed to claim Tim Minchin for Australia and disown Mel Gibson, throwing in Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe to boot. I think she just wanted an excuse to dump Mel on us. If that wasn’t enough, she tortured the audience with musk sticks and vegimite! Of course, I don’t know if you can call it torture when they volunteered, but she certainly would have known that they would be skeptical of Steve Novella’s description of vegimite (“It’s like chewing on my dirty gym socks.”) I likened it to Big Foot’s toe jam and I stand by that assessment. Musk sticks are a particularly vile “candy” which tastes strangely like aftershave. blech.

She did redeem herself by offering some wonderful carmels and discussing a topic I know little about: gaming. Apparently, my co-guests were both avid gamers and Novella wrote a few (well, more than that – 7) rule books. As the wife of a gamer who is often asked to calculate odds, I was impressed. The rules for these games are incredibly complicated and must be balanced enough to ensure that a game holds the players’ interest. I thought the panel was going well until the fire alarm went off and Kylie did her best Mel Gibson impression before diving off the stage into the audience… Okay, that’s not exactly how it went, but the panel did end and the ‘all clear’ was sounded before we got much further than the hall.

Last month I attended the Annual Convention of the Western Psychological Association (WPA), at which two of my students were scheduled to present research. I will spare you the five-page (single-spaced) description of my peril-fraught journey to Cancun and the disappointment of losing the posters along the way and just tell you that I am very proud of how my students handled it.

Totally unrelated lizard image. If you close your eyes, you might be able to imagine a beautiful poster with a couple of people standing in front of it.

Now for the science.

In my experience, most teachers, particularly college instructors, believe that entitlement attitudes, student expectations, study strategies, work habits, and aptitude have changed dramatically in recent years. As students spend more time working in addition to school, they miss more class and devote less time to studying. In addition, because modern technology makes it possible to use (and provide a copy to students) slide show presentations and distribute study guides. As the proportion of courses taught by adjunct faculty, whose teaching load is greater than tenure-track faculty, increases, so does the proportion of exams given in multiple choice format. This, along with outcomes-based learning which shaped students’ habits in elementary and secondary school, promotes rehearsal study strategies.

We hypothesize that the result is a cycle of incompetence as an increasing proportion of college students who believe that memorization of material is an effective way to study and that they are entitled to be given the material and assessments which maximize the benefits of this strategy. In addition, these students do not understand what they memorize and are unprepared for coursework which builds on the material they should have learned. Because they then attribute their failures to outside forces, they do not change their habits and a vicious cycle continues. The literature on academic entitlement is thin, however, some recent findings suggest that academic entitlement attitudes are positively correlated with narcissism, external attribution patterns, feelings of superiority, and exploitative attitudes (Greenberger, et al., 2008; Achacoso, 2002).

To examine these variables, we asked students (N = 95) in upper-division psychology courses to complete a number of measures. Our specific predictions were:

• Entitlement attitudes are positively correlated with external attribution style, narcissism, and feelings of superiority.
• Metacognitive skills are negatively associated with rehearsal learning strategies and positively associated with entitlement beliefs.

As with previous discussions, I will minimize the amount of statistics and technical information I discuss I use to describe the study and its findings, but if you would like more specific information, please feel free to email me.

Our measures:

• The Superiority Scale (Robbins & Patton, 1985).
• Narcissistic Personality Inventory (Raskin & Hall, 1981)
• The Multidimensional-Multiattributional Causality Scale: Achievement Subscale (Lefcourt, Baeyer, Ware, & Cox, 1979). This scale measures the degree to which the participant attributes academic achievement to ability, effort, context (such as the difficulty of the course), and luck. The former two are internal attributes and the latter two are external.
• Learning Strategies Survey we developed to measure the study habits that student think work best. Scores determined relative amounts of passive, rehearsal, and active learning strategies.
1. Passive = attending lectures without taking notes, attending review sessions to study for exams, and using templates or examples to write papers.
2. Rehearsal = using instructor-provided lecture notes, memorizing terms and concepts (e.g., flash cards), using study guides, and studying from sample questions or past exams.
3. Active = taking notes in class, active reading from learning objectives, and drafting & revising papers incorporating feedback.
• An Academic Entitlement Survey we developed which encompassed expectations about the source of grades, what students believe should be expected of them, what they believe instructors should provide, etc.
• A Metacognitive Measure: Participants evaluated the validity of ten syllogisms (all invalid), then estimated the percentage they answered correctly. Performance in this task is fairly difficult for most people to judge.
• In addition, we asked participants to indicate the number of hours studying each week outside of class they believed was reasonable to do well in the course and how many class meetings per semester it was reasonable to miss.

The number of variables and the complex relationships we hypothesized make the findings a bit confusing, but it can be simplified to a series of strong correlations.

Not at all surprising was that the more class meetings students thought it was acceptable to miss, the less time studying they felt should be needed to to do well. What is surprising is that the more missed class meetings they thought were acceptable, the more they felt that academic achievement is determined by luck. Attribution to luck was also positively correlated with rehearsal learning strategies.

The more students attributed achievement to context, the more entitleed they felt.

In addition:

• Entitlement attitudes were positively correlated with narcissism and superiority, a finding which is consistent with most studies on entitlement.
• The greater the entitlement attitude, the more likely students were to use rehearsal learning strategies and the less likely they were to use active strategies.
• The more entitled students felt, the more they attributed academic achievement to external causes (context and luck) and the less they attributed it to effort (attribution to ability was not correlated with any variable).
• Superiority attitudes were positively correlated with attributions to context.
• The most telling finding and the strongest correlations: Overestimation of performance was positively correlated with estimated performance, but negatively with actual performance. In other words, the better students thought that they had done on the argument judgments, the worse they actually performed and more they overestimated their performance.

The worse students performed, the better they thought they'd performed.

These findings are consistent with those of Kruger and Dunning (1999), who found that incompetence is perpetuated by ignorance of incompetence. (Dubbed “The Dunning-Kruger Effect“)

Rehearsal learning strategies were correlated with entitlement and external attributions, suggesting that students who believe that rehearsal strategies work best are more likely to feel entitled to use them and less likely to attribute their failures to those strategies or their own efforts. Instead, they will attribute them to external forces such as luck, instructors, and other situational factors. As a result, they continue to use the same failed strategies.

Student use rehearsal strategies which are highly ineffective, but since they attribute failures to external factors such as context and luck, they do not recognize that they do not understand the material. Thus they are stuck in a cycle of metacognitive ignorance and rehearsal strategies ensuring that they continue with poor strategies and poor outcomes, remaining ignorant of the need for change.

Before we publish these findings, we intend to test the validity and reliability of our original measures and use structural equation modeling to map the complex relationships among the variables. This should be completed in the fall with new participants and I fully expect these findings to be replicated.

References:

Anchacoso, M.V. (2006). “What do you mean my grade is not an A?”: An investigation of academic entitlement, causal attributions, and self-regulation in college students. Dissertation Abstracts International, 67 (6-A) : 2006-99023-155

Greenberger, E., Lessard, J., Chen, C., & Farruggia, S.P. (2008). Self-entitled college students: Contributions of personality, parenting, and motivational factors Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 37, 1193-1204 : 10.1007/s10964-008-9284-9

Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognizing one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77 (6), 1121-1134 : 10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1121

Lefcourt, H., von Baeyer, C., Ware, E., & Cox, D. (1979). The multidimensional-multiattributional causality scale: The development of a goal specific locus of control scale. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science/Revue canadienne des sciences du comportement, 11 (4), 286-304 DOI: 10.1037/h0081598

Raskin, R., & Hall, C. (1981). The Narcissistic Personality Inventory: Alternative Form Reliability and Further Evidence of Construct Validity Journal of Personality Assessment, 45 (2), 159-162 DOI: 10.1207/s15327752jpa4502_10

Robbins, S.B., & Patton, M.J. (1985). Self-psychology and career development: Construction of the Superiority and Goal Instability Scales Journal of Counseling Psychology, 32 (2), 221-231 : 10.1037/0022-0167.32.2.221