Narcissism Today: What We Know and What We Need to Learn

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Abstract

Narcissism is of great interest to behavioral scientists and the lay public. Research across the past 20 years has led to substantial progress in the conceptualization, measurement, and study of narcissism. This article reviews the current state of the field, identifying recent advances and outlining future directions. Advances include hierarchical conceptualizations of narcissism across one-factor (narcissism), two-factor (grandiose vs. vulnerable narcissism), and three-factor (agentic extraversion, antagonism, narcissistic neuroticism) levels; the development of measures to assess the components of narcissism; clarification of the relations between narcissism and self-esteem; an understanding of the behavioral and motivational dynamics underlying narcissistic actions and social outcomes; and insight regarding potential fluctuations between narcissistic states. Future directions point in general to increased research using the lower levels of the narcissism hierarchy, especially the three-factor level. At this level, more research on the etiology, heritability, stability, and centrality of the three components is required.

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Pathological narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder.

Aaron Pincus, Mark Lukowitsky (2010)

We review the literature on pathological narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) and describe a significant criterion problem related to four inconsistencies in phenotypic descriptions and taxonomic models across clinical theory, research, and practice; psychiatric diagnosis; and social/personality psychology. This impedes scientific synthesis, weakens narcissism's nomological net, and contributes to a discrepancy between low prevalence rates of NPD and higher rates of practitioner-diagnosed pathological narcissism, along with an enormous clinical literature on narcissistic disturbances. Criterion issues must be resolved, including clarification of the nature of normal and pathological narcissism, incorporation of the two broad phenotypic themes of narcissistic grandiosity and narcissistic vulnerability into revised diagnostic criteria and assessment instruments, elimination of references to overt and covert narcissism that reify these modes of expression as distinct narcissistic types, and determination of the appropriate structure for pathological narcissism. Implications for the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the science of personality disorders are presented.

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Controversies in Narcissism.

Joshua Miller, Donald R Lynam, Courtland S Hyatt … (2017)

There has been a surge in interest in and research on narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Despite or because of this increased attention, there are several areas of substantial debate that surround the construct, including descriptions of grandiose and vulnerable dimensions or variants, questions regarding the existence of a consensual description, central versus peripheral features of narcissism, distinctions between normal and pathological narcissism, possible etiological factors, the role of self-esteem in narcissism, where narcissism should be studied, how it can be assessed, and its representation in diagnostic nosologies. We suggest that a failure to distinguish between grandiose (i.e., overtly immodest, self-centered, entitled, domineering) and vulnerable (e.g., self-centered, distrustful, neurotic, introverted) presentations of narcissism has led to a less cohesive and coherent literature and that trait-based models of personality and personality disorder can bring greater clarity to many of these important debates.