The effects of trait narcissism and mood states on facial emotion recognition

This research aims to investigate the effect of narcissistic characteristics and mood states on facial emotion recognition. Grandiose narcissism was measured with Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), vulnerable narcissism was measured with Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale (HSNS) and mood states were measured with the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS-GEN). As a result of the data obtained from the scales, 45 university students participated in the study. A total of three groups, grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism, and the control group, participated in the study randomly and individually. The accuracy and the reaction time of the participants who saw facial expressions of emotions on the computer in the psychology laboratory via Psychopy software, both in upright and upside-down orientations, were measured. Grandiose narcissists recognized anger and neutrality faster, and vulnerable narcissists recognized sadness, fear, and disgust more quickly. Grandiose narcissists recognized the neutral emotion significantly more accurately, while vulnerable narcissists recognized the emotion of fear significantly. The negative mood state has been found to have a mediating effect on vulnerable narcissists' recognition of negative emotions.