I read a quote-maybe on the former armchair thread-?-and it was something about how there is no such thing as a self-aware narcissist.
Interesting you bring this up!
There are two schools of thought with narcissistic self awareness:
The Narcissistic Awareness View
The Narcissistic Ignorance View (originally the most accepted view)
In a recent study, Psychs found that a number of Narcissists Seem to actually have much more self awareness than ignorance.
(Then again, I'd like to know the sex,age,ethnicity,IQ of the participants before taking the study as a definite theory on narcissistic Awareness.)
Nonetheless, the test concluded with the following results:
"Consistent with prior studies:
Narcissists saw themselves very positively (positive self-perceptions)
Narcissists saw themselves more positively than other people saw them, whether the other person was an acquaintance, a close friend, a classmate, or a coworker (more positive self-perceptions than other-perceptions)
As in prior studies, others saw narcissists less and less positively as they got to know them more over time (deteriorating other perceptions)
New to this study, Carlson also found:
Narcissists rated themselves more positively than they believed others would rate them (self-perceptions more positive than meta-perceptions)
Narcissists were aware that others see them more positively initially and then like them less over time (deteriorating meta-perceptions just like other-perceptions)
Narcissists rated themselves somewhat higher on negative qualities that are associated with narcissism (e.g. conceited). That is, narcissists were somewhat aware of their narcissistic traits."
http://sciencereview.berkeley.edu/narcissists-know-theyre-narcissists/