Characterizing vulnerable and grandiose narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy in community-dwelling adult women: The role of cognitive styles, dispositional aggression and deviance, and personality traits

Abstract

To evaluate how selected cognitive styles (i.e., ideas of reference and fantasy proneness), dispositional aggression and social deviance, and personality traits could help understanding similarities and differences among vulnerable narcissism (VN), grandiose narcissism (GN), Machiavellianism, and psychopathy in women, 986 Italian community-dwelling participants were administered the Italian translations of the Revised Green et al., Paranoid Thoughts Scale Part A (R-GPTS-A), Creative Experience Questionnaire (CEQ), Aggression Questionnaire (AQ), Self-Report Delinquency Scale (SRDS), and Big Five Inventory (BFI). Participants received also the Five Factor Narcissism Inventory-Short Form (FFNI-SF), MACH-IV, and Expanded-Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (E-LSRP) to assess VN and GN, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, respectively. Multiple regression analyses showed that R-GPTS-A, CEQ, AQ, SRDS, and BFI trait scale scores explained a substantial amount of variance in the FFNI-SF VN (R2 = 0.62) and GN (R2 = 0.49) scale scores, MACH-IV scores (R2 = 0.29), and E-LSRP scores (R2 = 0.51). Dispositional aggression (i.e., AQ total score) represented a feature common to VN, GN, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy, whereas ideas of reference, fantasy proneness, social deviance, and personality traits yielded differential relationships with the dependent variables.