Abstract

Among both laypersons and researchers, extensive use of first-person singular pronouns (i.e., I-talk) is considered a face-valid linguistic marker of narcissism. However, the assumed relation between narcissism and I-talk has yet to be subjected to a strong empirical test. Accordingly, we conducted a large-scale (N 4,811), multisite (5 labs), multimeasure (5 narcissism measures) and dual-language (English and German) investigation to quantify how strongly narcissism is related to using more first-person singular pronouns across different theoretically relevant communication contexts (identity-related, personal, impersonal, private, public, and stream-of-consciousness tasks). Overall (r .01, 95% CI [.02, .04]) and within the sampled contexts, narcissism was unrelated to use of first-person singular pronouns (total, subjective, objective, and possessive). This consistent near-zero effect has important implications for making inferences about narcissism from pronoun use and prompts questions about why I-talk tends to be strongly perceived as an indicator of narcissism in the absence of an underlying actual association between the 2 variables.

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Citation

Brucks, Melanie, Angela Carey, Albrecht Kufner, Nicholas Holtzman, Fenne Deters, Mitja Back, M. Brent Donnellan, James Pennebaker, and Matthias Mehl. "Narcissism and the Use of Personal Pronouns: Revisited." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 109, no. 3 (2015): e1-e15.

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