Narcissism facets and popularity in developing peer groups: The functional role of facial mimicry

• Applicants: Professorin Dr. Ursula Hess; Professor Dr. Matthias Ziegler
• Subject Area: Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 431042929

Fehr (2012) describes a process model of the emergence and decay of friendship. An initiation phase is followed by phases of formation, maintenance, and, if necessary, decline and dissolution. Of importance for this proposal is that in all phases mutual liking (liking) plays a prominent role. Fehr also mentions important potential mechanisms that lead to the emergence of liking and to the maintenance or decline of liking. Fehr explicitly emphasizes aspects of personality. It is also important that the mechanisms addressed are understood as communicative processes and not as one-sided information processing. Finally, Fehr states that friendship, from the perspective of research, is the neglected relationship. This proposal addresses this desideratum from two perspectives: a social and a personality psychological perspective. The aim is to combine two successful research strands to gain more insight into the mechanisms that evoke and sustain liking. The model of mimicry in social relationships by Hess and Fischer (2013, 2014) describes how emotional mimicry, which reflects emotional facial expressions, regulates social relationships. It is assumed that a negative attitude towards a person leads to emotional mimicry being limited or even stopped. However, congruence in emotional expressions leads to social warmth and thus to liking. Emotional mimicry is therefore a function of the interaction goals. Thus, the situational context gets a special role, because it influences interaction goals. In personality psychology, the work of Paulhus (1998) and Back and colleagues shows that people with higher scores on subclinical narcissism scales are initially more popular when strangers meet. However, this initial popularity changes over time and eventually reverses. The work of Back and colleagues shows that emotional facial expressions are important. However, research to date has mostly focused on the phenomenon from the perspective of individuals. Moreover, the facetted nature of narcissism (agentic exraversion, self-centered antagonism, and narcissistic neuroticism) has not yet been sufficiently appreciated. The proposed study now combines research on mimicry and narcissism in relation to the emergence of friendships. Here lies an interesting connection to the model of Hess and Fischer, which will be focused in this project. The research questions aim at the role of emotional mimicry in the development of liking in general and the course of liking for persons with elevated narcissistic values in particular. The data obtained will be evaluated using continuous time modeling approaches.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants