Nicholas S. HoltzmanSoutheastern Louisiana University · Department of Psychology
Nicholas S. Holtzman
Ph.D.
About
45
Publications
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Introduction
General interests include personality psychology (especially traits like narcissism), social psychology (including the neighboring philosophical field called moral psychology), and, to some extent, health psychology. Technical interests include quantitative methods, experimental design, text analytics, data science, and psychoinformatics. Lots of our papers are on PsyArXiv as well.
Skills and Expertise
Additional affiliations
August 2018 - July 2022
August 2013 - August 2018
July 2011 - April 2013
Education
August 2005 - August 2011
Publications
Publications (45)
Which individual differences accurately predict one's decision to get tested for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and do individuals who have regular short-term sex get tested at higher rates? Two studies-one lab study (total valid N = 69, with n = 20 who were tested) and one involving a student health center (valid N = 250, n = 4 who were teste...
Objective
Self‐focused language use has been frequently assumed to reflect narcissism; however, research indicates that the association between first‐person singular pronouns (i.e., “I‐talk”) and grandiose narcissism is negligible.
Method
To extend this literature, we progressively identify vulnerable narcissism and rumination as positive correlat...
Collective narcissism refers to overvaluing the group with which one identifies. In a widely circulated and attention-grabbing paper, Putnam and colleagues (2018) measured collective narcissism by asking people how much their state in the U.S.A. contributed to the nation’s history. This led to some media reports proclaiming that the U.S.A. is “a na...
This chapter reviews the literature on first-person singular pronoun use (I-talk: using words like “I” and “me”) in social-personality psychology. In personality psychology, research points to the positive association between I-talk and depression, vulnerable narcissism, and neuroticism. In social psychology, researchers have contrasted I-talk with...
This book provides a cutting-edge overview of emotion science from an evolutionary perspective. Part 1 outlines different ways of approaching the study of emotion; Part 2 covers specific emotions from an evolutionary perspective; Part 3 discusses the role of emotions in a variety of life domains; and Part 4 explores the relationship between emotion...
Putnam and colleagues (2018) examined how people estimate the contribution of their state to the overall history of the United States. Samples from all 50 states reported some degree of overestimation of the importance of their home state compared to what others said about their state (Zaromb et al., 2014; Zaromb et al., 2018). We conducted a pre-r...
The three goals of this chapter are to introduce readers to construct of narcissism, to review the literature on the evolutionary origins of narcissism, and to review the literature on narcissism and emotions. Narcissism will be discussed as both a personality trait that is comprised by grandiose and vulnerable expressions, as well as a personality...
We review extant research on the psychological implications of the use of first-person singular pronouns (i.e., “I-talk”). A common intuition is that I-talk is associated with an overly positive, highly agentic, and inflated view of the self—including arrogance, self-centeredness, and grandiose narcissism. Initial (small-sample) research provided e...
We review extant research on the psychological implications of the use of first-person singular pronouns (i.e., “I-talk”). A common intuition is that I-talk is associated with an overly positive, highly agentic, and inflated view of the self—including arrogance, self-centeredness, and grandiose narcissism. Initial (small-sample) research provided e...
The personality of individuals is clustered by geographic regions; a resident of a region is more similar to another resident than to a random non-resident. Research in geographical psychology often has focused on this clustering effect in broad regions, such as countries and states, using broad domains of personality, such as the Big Five. We exam...
The personality of individuals is clustered by geographic regions; a resident of a region is more similar to another resident than to a random non-resident. Research in geographical psychology often has focused on this clustering effect in broad regions, such as countries and states, using broad domains of personality, such as the Big Five. We exam...
People have long used language to infer associates’ personality. In quantitative research, the relationship is often analyzed by looking at correlations between a psychological construct and the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC)—a program that tabulates word frequencies. We compare LIWC to a machine learning (ML) language model on the task o...
Narcissism is unrelated to using first-person singular pronouns. Whether narcissism is linked to other language use remains unclear. We aimed to identify linguistic markers of narcissism. We applied the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count to texts ( k = 15; N = 4,941). The strongest positive correlates were using words related to sports, second-perso...
Narcissism is unrelated to using first-person singular pronouns. Whether narcissism is linked to other language use remains unclear. We aimed to identify linguistic markers of narcissism. We applied the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count to texts (k = 15; N = 4,941). The strongest positive correlates were: using words related to sports, second-perso...
Narcissism is unrelated to using first-person singular pronouns. Whether narcissism is linked to other language use remains unclear. We aimed to identify linguistic markers of narcissism. We applied the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count to texts (k = 15; N = 4,941). The strongest positive correlates were: using words related to sports, second-perso...
Surveys commonly suffer from insufficient effort responding (IER). If not accounted for, IER can cause biases and lead to false conclusions. In particular, Cronbach’s alpha has been empirically observed to either deflate or inflate due to IER. This paper will elucidate how IER impacts Cronbach’s alpha in a variety of situations. Previous results co...
This chapter, like each chapter in the edited book, focuses on narcissism (arrogance, exploitativeness, self-admiration, etc.). My goal is to entertain and evaluate the possibility that narcissism evolved. It is important to point out that, by way of background, just because something is morally suspect does not mean that it didn't evolve; indeed,...
Narcissism is virtually unrelated to using first-person singular pronouns (Carey et al., [2015] Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 109). The degree to which narcissism is linked to other aspects of language use, however, remains unclear. We conducted a multi-site, multi-measure, and dual-language project to identify potential linguistic...
Depressive symptomatology is manifested in greater first-person singular pronoun use (i.e., I-talk), but when and for whom this effect is most apparent, and the extent to which it is specific to depression or part of a broader association between negative emotionality and I-talk, remains unclear. Using pooled data from N = 4,754 participants from 6...
Depressive symptomatology is manifested in greater first-person singular pronoun use (i.e., I-talk), but when and for whom this effect is most apparent, and the extent to which it is specific to depression or part of a broader association between negative emotionality and I-talk, remains unclear. Using pooled data from N = 4,754 participants from 6...
The current study extended the Procrastination-Health model by examining a multiple mediation model, with two cognitive schemas (defectiveness; insufficient self-control) serving as mediators. The models were as follows: procrastination → defectiveness → depression; procrastination → insufficient self-control → depression. Participants included 412...
When using multiple regression, researchers frequently wish to explore how the relationship between two variables is moderated by another variable; this is termed an interaction. Historically, two approaches have been used to probe interactions: the pick-a-point approach and the Johnson-Neyman (JN) technique. The pick-a-point approach has limitatio...
Random responding can inflate Type I and Type II error rates (Huang, Liu, & Bowling, 2015b, Journal of Applied
Psychology, 100). Type II error inflation often involves certain variables having Invalid Centered Responses And
Valid Uncentered Responses (ICRAVUR; pronunciation: /aikreɪvər/). Although Huang et al. (2015b) offer a set
of formulas for ca...
Depression is a burden. We discuss how theories, identification, assessment, and treatment of depression are at least partially tied to the correlation between first person singular pronoun use and individual differences in depression. We conducted a meta-analysis (k = 21, N = 3,758) of these correlations, including numerous unpublished correlation...
Mind perception involves attributing higher functional abilities to others (e.g., saying a dog feels pain). The relationships between mind perception and psychopathology—autism, psychopathy, and schizotypy—have been revealed by K. Gray, Jenkins, Heberlein, and Wegner (2011 Gray, K., Jenkins, A. C., Heberlein, A. S., & Wegner, D. M. (2011). Distorti...
The construct of narcissism encompasses attributes such as arrogance, assertiveness, a sense of authority, entitlement, exhibitionism, exploitativeness, forcefulness, self-absorption, social potency, and vanity. The purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the evolutionary origins of this multifaceted trait. We posit: (1) Narcissism is...
Among both laypersons and researchers, extensive use of first-person singular pronouns (i.e., I-talk) is considered a face-valid linguistic marker of narcissism. However, the assumed relation between narcissism and I-talk has yet to be subjected to a strong empirical test. Accordingly, we conducted a large-scale (N = 4,811), multisite (5 labs), mul...
Phrase counting is an effective approach to capturing individual differences in language use. Specific phrases (e.g., " war on terrorism ") powerfully predict a congressperson's political ideology. The question addressed in this study is whether there is additional information that can be extracted from the indirect relations among words in large S...
Among both laypersons and researchers, extensive use of first-person singular pronouns (i.e., I-talk) is considered a face-valid linguistic marker of narcissism. However, the assumed relation between narcissism and I-talk has yet to be subjected to a strong empirical test. Accordingly, we conducted a large-scale (N 4,811), multisite (5 labs), mul...
To what extent are personality traits and sexual strategies linked? The literature does not provide a clear answer, as it is based on the Sociosexuality model, a one-dimensional model that fails to measure long-term mating (LTM). An improved two-dimensional model separately assesses long-term and short-term mating (STM; Jackson and Kirkpatrick, 200...
Which personality traits are associated with physical attractiveness? Recent findings suggest that people high in some dark personality traits, such as narcissism and psychopathy, can be physically attractive. But what makes them attractive? Studies have confounded the more enduring qualities that impact attractiveness (i.e., unadorned attractivene...
Is facial structure a valid cue of the dark triad of personality (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy)? I obtained self-reports and peer reports of personality as well as expression-neutral photographs of targets, and then I created prototypes of people high and low on each of the three dimensions by digitally combining select photographs...
Symmetry on bilateral body parts indicates evolutionary fitness. Thus, traits positively associated with symmetry are thought to have conferred fitness in evolutionary history. Studies of the relationships between personality traits and symmetry have been narrow and have produced inconsistent findings. In our study, we relate both body symmetry and...
Despite the enormous popularity of Online Social Networking sites (OSNs; e.g., Facebook and Myspace), little research in psychology has been done on them. Two studies examining how personality is reflected in OSNs revealed several connections between the Big Five personality traits and self-reported Facebook-related behaviors and observable profile...
The origins of narcissism are poorly understood but an evolutionary framework can provide some insight. Evidence is consistent with the view that narcissism evolved because it conferred advantages for short-term sexual relations, namely physical attractiveness and coercive tendencies. Narcissism also peaks in adolescence, when promiscuity is quite...
Text-analytic methods have become increasingly popular in cognitive science for understanding differences in semantic structure between documents. However, such methods have not been widely used in other disciplines. With the aim of disseminating these approaches, we introduce a text-analytic technique (Contrast Analysis of Semantic Similarity, CAS...
Little is known about narcissists' everyday behavior. The goal of this study was to describe how narcissism is manifested in everyday life. Using the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR), we obtained naturalistic behavior from participants' everyday lives. The results suggest that the defining characteristics of narcissism that have been establi...
Is narcissism related to observer-rated attractiveness? Two views imply that narcissism is unrelated to attractiveness: positive illusions theory and Feingold’s (1992) attractiveness theory (i.e., attractiveness is unrelated to personality in general). In contrast, two other views imply that narcissism is positively related to attractiveness: an ev...
Questions
Questions (5)
I am a psychologist interested in getting a single number to quantify "flattening the curve"---one value for each of 50 geographical areas (states) in the USA. For my purposes, I want to know which states are doing a better job of "flattening the curve". Perhaps epidemiologists or biostatisticians could help. Not interested in qualitative analytics--just need a number for each state (or, better still, a formula that can be applied to each state). Thanks.
Say I have a pair of 2 x 2 tables for which I have obtained phi correlations. How do I statistically compare the two magnitudes? Steiger (1980) did this with Pearson correlations but didn't mention phi correlations. I would like to compute a p-value corresponding to the difference between the phi magnitudes. Bonus points to anyone who can point to an R formula or provide literature.
I have been searching for an efficient way to analyze simple effects in a 2 x 2 mixed ANOVA--that is, one between subjects factor and one within subjects factor. There is a way in SPSS, but it is cumbersome. It appears PHIA package in R may be the best option. If you have worked with this package and have an example of how to probe a 2 x 2 interaction with simple effects analyses, I would like to talk to you. If you've integrated code for a figure, that would be a plus.
I am seeking an instance of hierarchical multiple regression in Microsoft Excel 2010 or 2013 on a PC.
A few notes on what I'm NOT looking for, so as to guide the discussion. I've implemented this quantitative method successfully in other programs (e.g., SPSS), so I am not interested in alternative software. Further, I have already found a solution to multiple regression in Excel (See Liengme's text for scientists and engineers). This is also not about HLM.
Thanks!
