Carolina Pinales • 2024 McNair Summer Research Symposium • July 8, 2024

Carolina Pinales

Class of 2025

Majors: Criminology & Psychology

Mentor: Bill Ellison, PhD

Trinity University

Narcissism in College Students: How Narcissism Relates to Attributions for

Test Performance

Narcissism, as understood by scientists today, operates in three dimensions. People with high

narcissistic neuroticism show lower self esteem and attribute their success more to outside

factors (Rohmann et. al, 2019). People with narcissistic extraversion display high self esteem and

regularly attribute their success to themselves (Scharbert et al., 2024). Those with high

narcissistic antagonism will be more competitive and hostile when their self esteem is threatened

(Kwiatkowska et al., 2019;Miller et. al, 2021). In this experimental study, we examined how

narcissism influences students’ attributions for their test performance. Participants (n = 201)

from Trinity University completed a narcissism questionnaire before taking a test in their

preferred major. They then received false feedback telling them either that they performed in the

27th percentile or 82nd percentile. They were then asked how much they attributed their

performance to prior knowledge (versus luck and test difficulty). Extraversion and antagonistic

dimensions of narcissism did not relate to attributions. However, students higher in neurotic

narcissism were more likely to attribute poor performance to their prior knowledge, whereas

students lower in neurotic narcissism were more likely to attribute good performance to their

prior knowledge (interaction p = 0.015). These results align with prior literature and future

studies should review more in depth how different types of narcissism make it so a person may

attribute it to other factors than themselves.

Keywords: Narcissism, neuroticism, extraversion, antagonism, attribution