W. Keith Campbell

Egos inflating over time: a cross-temporal meta-analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory.

A cross-temporal meta-analysis found that narcissism levels have risen over the generations in 85 samples of American college students who completed the 40-item forced-choice Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) between 1979 and 2006 (total n=16,475). Mean narcissism scores were significantly correlated with year of data collection when weighted by sample size (beta=.53, p<.001). Since 1982, NPI scores have increased 0.33 standard deviation. Thus, almost two-thirds of recent college students are above the mean 1979-1985 narcissism score, a 30% increase. The results complement previous studies finding increases in other individualistic traits such as assertiveness, agency, self-esteem, and extraversion.

Self-threat magnifies the self-serving bias: A meta-analytic integration

Experiments testing the self-serving bias (SSB; taking credit for personal success but blaming external factors for personal failure) have used a multitude of moderators (i.e., role, task importance, outcome expectancies, self-esteem, achievement motivation, self-focused attention, task choice, perceived task difficulty, interpersonal orientation, status, affect, locus of control, gender, and task type). The present meta-analytic review established the viability and pervasiveness of the SSB and, more important, organized the 14 moderators just listed under the common theoretical umbrella of self-threat. According to the self-threat model, the high self-threat level of each moderator is associated with a larger display of the SSB than the low self-threat level. The model was supported: Self-threat magnifies the SSB.

Psychological Entitlement: Interpersonal Consequences and Validation of a Self-Report Measure

Nine studies were conducted with the goal of developing a self-report measure of psychological entitlement and assessing its interpersonal consequences. The Psychological Entitlement Scale (PES) was found to be reliable and valid (Study 1, 2), not associated with social desirability (Study 2), stable across time (Study 3), and correlated negatively with two of the Big Five factors: agreeableness and emotional stability (Study 4). The validity of the PES was confirmed in studies that assessed willingness to take candy designated for children (Study 5) and reported deservingness of pay in a hypothetical employment setting (Study 6). Finally, the PES was linked to important interpersonal consequences including competitive choices in a commons dilemma (Study 7), selfish approaches to romantic relationships (Study 8), and aggression following ego threat (Study 9). Psychological entitlement has a pervasive and largely unconstructive impact on social behavior.

Narcissism, Self-Esteem, and the Positivity of Self-Views: Two Portraits of Self-Love

The authors hypothesized that both narcissism and high self-esteem are associated with positive self-views but each is associated with positivity in different domains of the self. Narcissists perceive themselves as better than average on traits reflecting an agentic orientation (e.g., intellectual skills, extraversion) but not on those reflecting a communal orientation (e.g., agreeableness, morality). In contrast, high-self-esteem individuals perceive themselves as better than average both on agentic and communal traits. Three studies confirmed the hypothesis. In Study 1, narcissists rated themselves as extraverted and open to experience but not as more agreeable or emotionally stable. High-self-esteem individuals rated themselves highly on all of these traits except openness. In Study 2, narcissists (but not high-self-esteem individuals) rated themselves as better than their romantic partners. In Study 3, narcissists rated themselves as more intelligent, but not more moral, than the average person. In contrast, high-self-esteem individuals viewed themselves as more moral and more intelligent.

“Isn’t It Fun to Get the Respect That We’re Going to Deserve?” Narcissism, Social Rejection, and Aggression

Across four studies, narcissists were more angry and aggressive after experiencing a social rejection than were nonnarcissists. In Study 1, narcissism was positively correlated with feelings of anger and negatively correlated with more internalized negative emotions in a self-reported, past episode of social rejection. Study 2 replicated this effect for a concurrent lab manipulation of social rejection. In Study 3, narcissists aggressed more against someone who rejected them (i.e., direct aggression). In Study 4, narcissists were also more aggressive toward an innocent third party after experiencing social rejection (i.e., displaced aggression). Narcissists were not more aggressive after social acceptance. Self-esteem plays little role in predicting aggression in response to rejection. These results suggest that the combination of narcissism and social rejection is a powerful predictor of aggressive behavior.

Self-Esteem, Narcissism, and Aggression Does Violence Result From Low Self-Esteem or From Threatened Egotism?

A traditional view holds that low self-esteem causes aggression, but recent work has not confirmed this. Although aggressive people typically have high self-esteem, there are also many nonaggressive people with high self-esteem, and so newer constructs such as narcissism and unstable self-esteem are most effective at predicting aggression. The link between self-regard and aggression is best captured by the theory of threatened egotism, which depicts aggression as a means of defending a highly favorable view of self against someone who seeks to undermine or discredit that view.

Comparing Clinical and Social‐Personality Conceptualizations of Narcissism

There is a lack of consensus surrounding the conceptualization of narcissism. The present study compared two measures of narcissism-one used in clinical settings (Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire, PDQ-4+; Hyler, 1994) and one used in social-personality research (Narcissistic Personality Inventory, NPI; Raskin & Terry, 1988)-across two samples. Sample 1 (N=271) was composed of undergraduates, whereas Sample 2 (N=211) was composed of parents of the Sample 1 participants. The scales were significantly interrelated but manifested divergent relations with general personality traits, personality disorders (including expert prototypal ratings of narcissism), recollections of parenting received, and psychological distress and self-esteem. PDQ-4 narcissism captured an emotionally unstable, negative-affect-laden, and introverted variant of narcissism; NPI narcissism captured an emotionally resilient, extraverted form. The clinical and social-personality conceptualizations of narcissism primarily share a tendency to use an antagonistic interpersonal style. Implications for the DSM-V are discussed.

Individual differences in narcissism: Inflated self-views across the lifespan and around the world

Abstract The present investigation examined associations among narcissism, age, ethnicity, world region, and gender, using a large ( n =3445) sample of participants representing several different world regions and ethnicities. The results suggest that (1) reported narcissism declines in older participants, (2) consistent with previous findings, males report being more narcissistic than females, (3) that ethnic differences in reported narcissism are generally comparable to those found in the self-esteem literature, and (4) that world region appears to exert influence on narcissism, with participants from more individualistic societies reporting more narcissism. The results are discussed in terms of how age and culture might impact narcissism and how future research might address this topic.

Too proud to let go: narcissistic entitlement as a barrier to forgiveness.

Narcissistic entitlement impedes forgiveness in ways not captured by other robust predictors (e.g., offense severity, apology, relationship closeness, religiosity, Big Five personality factors), as demonstrated in 6 studies. Narcissistic entitlement involves expectations of special treatment and preoccupation with defending ones rights. In Study 1, entitlement predicted less forgiveness and greater insistence on repayment for a past offense. Complementary results emerged from Study 2, which used hypothetical transgressions, and Study 3, which assessed broad forgiveness dispositions. Study 4 examined associations with the Big Five, and Study 5 extended the findings to a laboratory context. Study 6 demonstrated that entitlement predicted diminished increases in forgiveness over time. Taken together, these results suggest that narcissistic entitlement is a robust, distinct predictor of unforgiveness.

Grandiose and Vulnerable Narcissism: A Nomological Network Analysis

Evidence has accrued to suggest that there are 2 distinct dimensions of narcissism, which are often labeled grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Although individuals high on either of these dimensions interact with others in an antagonistic manner, they differ on other central constructs (e.g., Neuroticism, Extraversion). In the current study, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis of 3 prominent self-report measures of narcissism (N=858) to examine the convergent and discriminant validity of the resultant factors. A 2-factor structure was found, which supported the notion that these scales include content consistent with 2 relatively distinct constructs: grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. We then compared the similarity of the nomological networks of these dimensions in relation to indices of personality, interpersonal behavior, and psychopathology in a sample of undergraduates (n=238). Overall, the nomological networks of vulnerable and grandiose narcissism were unrelated. The current results support the need for a more explicit parsing of the narcissism construct at the level of conceptualization and assessment.