On the Meaning and Measure of Narcissism

On the Meaning and Measure of Narcissism

For three decades, social-personality research on overt narcissism has relied almost exclusively on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI). However, the NPI suffers from a host of psychometric and validity concerns that make composite NPI scores (summed across its subscales) difficult to inter...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Personality & social psychology bulletin Vol. 35; no. 7; pp. 951 - 964
Main Authors: Brown, Ryan P., Budzek, Karolyn, Tamborski, Michael
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01-07-2009
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects:
Adult
Attitudes
Conduct Disorder - diagnosis
Conduct Disorder - psychology
Entitlement
Extraversion (Psychology)
Female
Health Status
Humans
Male
Meaning
Mental Health
Misconduct
Models, Psychological
Narcissism
Narcissistic personality disorder
Personality
Personality - classification
Personality Inventory - statistics & numerical data
Personality tests
Probability
Psychometrics
Regression Analysis
Self Concept
Self esteem
Selfconcept
Sex Factors
grandiosity
entitlement
misconduct
narcissism
mental health
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Summary:For three decades, social-personality research on overt narcissism has relied almost exclusively on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI). However, the NPI suffers from a host of psychometric and validity concerns that make composite NPI scores (summed across its subscales) difficult to interpret. The present studies propose that narcissistic characteristics tend to fall under two general clusters: grandiosity and entitlement. The studies show that measures of grandiosity and entitlement interact to predict scores on the NPI, controlling for gender, self-esteem, and basic personality (Study 1), but also that grandiosity and entitlement function independently with respect to mental health (Study 2) and ethical misconduct (Study 3). Together, these results challenge the view of overt narcissism as a unidimensional construct and underscore the importance of distinguishing between grandiose and entitled aspects of the narcissistic self-concept.
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ISSN:0146-1672
1552-7433
DOI:10.1177/0146167209335461