Those with a healthy self-esteem believe they are worthy and competent, and strive for intimate, meaningful connections with others, but do not necessarily see themselves as superior to others. In contrast, narcissists think they are superior to others, but they don’t necessarily view themselves as worthy. Indeed, because they often lack an inner stable sense of self-security, the narcissists’ sense of self-esteem is often almost entirely dependent on the validation of others. Could it be that people are confusing the two?

This is just what the researchers found. People who scored high in narcissism and self-esteem were perceived as having higher self-esteem than people who were equally high in self-esteem but less narcissistic. They even looked at dating profiles and found that heterosexual female participants indicated greater interest in meeting males who were more narcissistic based on their Tinder profile pictures, and this effect was specifically explained by higher perception of self-esteem, not narcissism. These results suggest that perceptions of narcissism were being overridden by the positive effect of perceptions of self-esteem on liking.