Vulnerable Narcissism Modulates Early Neural Processing of Verbal Violence in Women: An ERP Study

This study examined how narcissistic traits influence women’s cognitive processing of verbal violence. Using a lexical decision task, an emotional Stroop task, and event-related potentials, we analyzed neural responses to violent versus neutral words in 70 women. Behaviorally, while narcissism showed no significant impact on performance in the Lexical Decision Task, a specific interference effect emerged in the emotional Stroop task, where higher narcissistic vulnerability predicted reduced accuracy for violent words relative to neutral ones. Notably, ERP results revealed a consistent pattern across both tasks: higher PNI total scores significantly predicted reduced amplitudes of early components, specifically the N170 and P2. Furthermore, in the emotional Stroop task, the vulnerability dimension emerged as a significant predictor of reduced EPN and P2 amplitudes. These findings suggest that when exposed to verbal violence, narcissistic women exhibit attenuated early evaluation and attentional allocation. This reflects a preemptive cognitive avoidance strategy used to protect the self-concept, driven primarily by a general narcissistic defensive pattern that manifests most acutely in vulnerable traits under high-interference conditions.