I’m So Proud of Myself: The Associations of Narcissism and Pride with Creativity

In this study, we examined the relationships between creativity and two distinct personality traits—narcissism and pride. Existing literature suggests that these traits are positively related to creativity; however, previous findings have been based primarily on self-reports. We extended this line of research by including both self-ratings (N = 265) and evaluations provided by independent observers (N = 261). Our results supported a positive link between self-reported creativity and both agentic narcissism and authentic pride. However, this self-perceived connection was not reflected in external evaluations, highlighting a discrepancy between self-perception and others’ judgements. Specifically, authentic pride showed a robust positive association with creativity in both self- and observer-reports, emphasizing its genuine and reliable nature. In contrast, the connection between agentic narcissism and creativity appeared only in self-reports and was absent in observer data.