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Narcissism
What Narcissists Really Think of Their Partners
We all have biased views of our partners, including narcissists.
Posted April 4, 2023 Reviewed by Michelle Quirk
Key points
- In recent research, people high in narcissistic admiration tended to view themselves as superior to their partners.
- Those high in narcissistic rivalry tended to rate their partners as higher in warmth and trustworthiness than they rated themselves.
- Those high in narcissistic admiration tended to attract partners who shared their inflated perceptions of themselves.
Grandiose narcissists have inflated self-perceptions and crave admiration from others. This means they will sometimes use their romantic relationships to help maintain their egos. Research shows that they prefer physically attractive or high-status partners to show off as trophies to enhance their own status.
However, narcissists are also highly motivated to see themselves as superior to others, particularly when it comes to status-related traits. This could create a potential conflict for their egos. On the one hand, they want high-status partners to make them look better. But, on the other hand, they wouldn't want to be outshined by a partner. In a paper just published in the Journal of Personal and Social Relationships, my colleagues and I explored how accurately narcissists perceive their romantic partners and what biases they may have.
The Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Concept
One way of thinking about narcissism that has led to a greater understanding of how people with narcissistic traits view their partners is the narcissistic admiration and rivalry concept. According to this theory, narcissism consists of two dimensions: narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry. Narcissistic admiration involves perceiving oneself as unique and special and trying to impress others with one's status and charm. People with high levels of narcissistic admiration tend to be well-liked by others at first acquaintance and often do quite well in the early stages of a dating relationship.
Narcissistic rivalry is a more hostile and antagonistic element of narcissism that involves devaluing others and seeing oneself as superior. Narcissistic rivalry is associated with greater aggression and more social difficulties. Narcissists can be high in both of these dimensions or only on narcissistic admiration. Previous research has shown that narcissistic admiration is generally associated with positive perceptions of partners and narcissistic rivalry is related to negative perceptions. This can help shed light on how those with narcissistic traits view their partners.
Measuring Accuracy and Bias in Partner Perceptions
This research leaves open two important questions. First, do narcissists view their partners more positively than they view themselves? It is common for satisfied couples to perceive their partners more positively than themselves, a phenomenon referred to as partner enhancement. But engaging in partner enhancement could be threatening for those high in narcissism.
Second, how accurate are these perceptions? Are people high in narcissistic admiration inflating their partners' value in their own minds, or are they actually obtaining more desirable partners? Similarly, are those high in narcissistic rivalry devaluing their partners, or are they, due to their unpleasant interpersonal behavior, unable to attract partners who are a good catch? Or are they simply failing to see their partners with the positive biases that characterize happy couples?
My colleagues and I conducted two studies to answer these questions. In both studies, participants completed a questionnaire assessing their levels of narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry, and they rated both themselves and their partners on three different categories of desirable traits: warmth/trustworthiness, attractiveness/vitality, and status/resources. The first study sampled 252 individuals who were currently involved in romantic relationships, and the second study surveyed 75 couples, asking both partners to complete the same survey. This second study allowed us to test the extent to which participants' perceptions of their partners were accurate.
In both studies, we found that narcissistic admiration was related to lower levels of partner enhancement on attractiveness and status. That is, participants who were high in narcissistic admiration tended to view themselves as superior to their partners. Those high in narcissistic rivalry, on the other hand, did not see themselves as superior or inferior to their partners in these two areas. However, they did tend to rate their partners as higher in warmth and trustworthiness than they rated themselves.
Partners of those high in narcissistic admiration were more likely to partner enhance on both attractiveness and status. That is, the partners of people high in narcissistic admiration perceived those narcissistic partners as more attractive and higher status than themselves. This suggests that these narcissistic individuals were able to find partners who provide them with the admiration they crave, in the areas in which they crave it (attractiveness and status).
We also used the couple data to examine the presence of two types of accuracy in partner perceptions. The first type is referred to as mean-level bias, and it describes the extent to which people rate their partners more positively than the partners rate themselves. The second type, tracking accuracy, refers to whether or not people accurately understand their partner's position relative to other people. For example, if people showed high tracking accuracy in their perceptions of their partners' warmth, then those with the warmest partners would rate them the warmest compared to the rest of the partner ratings made by the other participants, and those with the coldest partners would rate them the lowest, compared to the other participants.
We found that narcissistic rivalry was associated with less mean-level bias in perceptions of attractiveness. That is, those with high levels of narcissistic rivalry were less likely to perceive their partners as more attractive than the partners perceived themselves. Narcissistic rivalry was also associated with greater tracking accuracy in perceptions of attractiveness. So, people higher in narcissistic rivalry had a more accurate sense of where their partners stood in the physical attractiveness pecking order.
In Sum
When it comes to perceiving their partners, satisfied couples tend to have positive biases. However, individuals with high levels of narcissistic traits may not exhibit these biases. Those high in narcissistic admiration are particularly unlikely to inflate their partners above themselves. However, they do not necessarily see their partners in a less biased way than those with low levels of narcissism. They still exhibit the same amount of mean-level bias as those who are low in narcissism. They just can't bring themselves to see their partners as superior to themselves. Additionally, those high in narcissistic admiration tend to attract partners who share their inflated perceptions of themselves. On the other hand, those high in narcissistic rivalry may not necessarily devalue their partners. Instead, they may fail to see them through the same positive lens as most people do when looking at their partners.
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