Volume 87, Issue 2
ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Eyebrows cue grandiose narcissism

Miranda Giacomin

Corresponding Author

E-mail address: miranda.giacomin@utoronto.ca

University of Toronto

Correspondence

Miranda Giacomin, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3G3.

Email: miranda.giacomin@utoronto.ca

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First published: 05 May 2018
Citations: 3

Funding information: Social Sciences and Humanities Research and National Science and Engineering Research Councils of Canada to NOR

Abstract

Objective

Though initially charming and inviting, narcissists often engage in negative interpersonal behaviors. Identifying and avoiding narcissists therefore carries adaptive value. Whereas past research has found that people can judge others' grandiose narcissism from their appearance (including their faces), the cues supporting these judgments require further elucidation. Here, we investigated which facial features underlie perceptions of grandiose narcissism and how they convey that information.

Method and Results

In Study 1, we explored the face's features using a variety of manipulations, ultimately finding that accurate judgments of grandiose narcissism particularly depend on a person's eyebrows. In Studies 2A–2C, we identified eyebrow distinctiveness (e.g., thickness, density) as the primary characteristic supporting these judgments. Finally, we confirmed the eyebrows' importance in Studies 3A and 3B by measuring how much perceptions of narcissism changed when swapping narcissists' and non‐narcissists' eyebrows between faces.

Conclusions

Together, these data show that distinctive eyebrows reveal narcissists' personality to others, providing a basic understanding of the mechanism through which people can identify narcissistic personality traits with potential application to daily life.

The full text of this article hosted at iucr.org is unavailable due to technical difficulties.