Metacognition, States of mind, Cognitive Biases, and Interpersonal Cycles. Proposal for an Integrated Narcissism Model

A narcissistic personality can be seen as arising from a number of separate dimensions of mental life: (a) a characteristic set of states of mind; (b) alterations in metacognitive skills—in particular a difficulty in accessing one’s own inner states, desires, and emotions—and a difficulty in understanding another’s mind from a decentrated perspective; (c) the sensation that experiences are not being shared with a relevant other and that one does not belong to real-life groups; (d) characteristic methods of regulating one’s self-image and self-esteem through cognitive biases; (e) the use, in most cases, of values, rather than emotional experience and interpersonal regulation, for regulating behavior; and (f) characteristic dysfunctional interpersonal cycles. In this work the authors propose an integrated model that describes how the disorder perpetuates itself and suggest some hierarchies of importance between the elements portrayed above