Seeing My World in a Million Little Pieces: Narcissism, Self-Construal, and Cognitive–Perceptual Style.

In 4 studies we examine the association between narcissism, self-construal, and cognitive–perceptual style, hypothesizing that high self-focus in combination with low other-focus (i.e., social atomization) is related to an analytic cognitive–perceptual style. Participants completed the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, the Self-Construal Scale, and measures of cognitive–perceptual style such as the Analysis-Holism Scale, the Embedded Figures Test, a visual illusion test, and a measure of the representativeness heuristic. We found evidence for a decontextualized cognitive–perceptual style in socially atomized participants, which included those high in narcissism and also those who had a combination of high independent and low interdependent self-construal. A meta-analytic integration of our findings found that narcissism was positively related to independent and negatively related to interdependent self-construal, and mediation analyses found some evidence that the relationship between self-construal and cognitive–perceptual style is partially mediated by narcissism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]