Abstract
Grandiose and vulnerable narcissism seem to be uncorrelated in empirical studies, yet they share at least some theoretical similarities. In the current study, we examine the relation between grandiose (conceptualized as admiration and rivalry) and vulnerable narcissism in the context of the Big Five personality traits and metatraits, self-esteem, and their nomological network. To this end, participants (N = 314) filled in a set of self-report measures via an online survey. Rivalry was positively linked with both admiration and vulnerable narcissism. We replicated the relations of admiration and rivalry with personality traits and metatraits—as well as extended existing knowledge by providing support for the theory that vulnerable narcissism is simultaneously negatively related to the Stability and Plasticity. Higher scores on vulnerable narcissism and rivalry predicted having fragile self-esteem, whereas high scores on admiration predicted having optimal self-esteem. The assumed relations with the nomological network were confirmed, i.e., vulnerable narcissism and admiration demonstrated a contradictory pattern of relation to shyness and loneliness, whilst rivalry predicted low empathy. Our results suggest that the rivalry is between vulnerable narcissism and admiration, which supports its localization in the self-importance dimension of the narcissism spectrum model. It was concluded that whereas admiration and rivalry represent the bright and dark face of narcissism, vulnerable narcissism represents its blue face.
Highlights
Narcissism can be described as a construct with different faces used for different purposes, which are shown depending on the situational assessment (Rogoza, in press)
It may be claimed that the self-importance dimension of the Narcissism Spectrum Model (NSM) may be suggested to be the core of narcissism, as it links the orthogonal dimensions of vulnerability and grandiosity (Krizan and Herlache, 2017)
The relationships of both types of narcissism to basic personality traits were mostly replications of the results from previous studies (e.g., Hendin and Cheek, 1997; Rogoza et al, 2016b; Leckelt et al, 2018): vulnerable narcissism was predicted by high neuroticism and low extraversion, rivalry was predicted by low agreeableness, and admiration was predicted by high extraversion and openness to experience
Summary
Narcissism can be described as a construct with different faces used for different purposes, which are shown depending on the situational assessment (Rogoza, in press). The word “narcissism” in common use describes someone who is excessively self-absorbed, selfish and egoistical, selfenhancing, arrogant and shameless (Jonason et al, 2012); from a scientific perspective, The Spectrum of Narcissism in Its Relations to the Metatraits of Personality two forms of narcissism can be distinguished: vulnerable and grandiose narcissism (Wink, 1991; Pincus et al, 2009; Miller et al, 2012) This distinction causes controversies to emerge as despite both being called narcissism, they are heterogenous constructs (Miller et al, 2017a). We posit that a possible explanation of the dissimilarities and similarities between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism is to be found in an exploration of the so called bright and dark side of grandiose narcissism (Back et al, 2013)
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