Narcissists Don’t Learn From Their Mistakes

When most people find that their actions have resulted in an undesirable outcome, they tend to rethink their decisions and ask, “What should I have done differently to avoid this outcome?”

When narcissists face the same situation, however, their refrain is, “No one could have seen this coming!”

In refusing to acknowledge that they have made a mistake, narcissists fail to learn from those mistakes, a recent study from Oregon State University – Cascades found.

The mental process of analyzing past actions to see what one should have done differently is called “should counterfactual thinking.” Counterfactual thinking is the mental process of imagining a different outcome or scenario from what actually occurred.