Age Differences in the Desirability of Narcissism
Abstract
Abstract. Young adult narcissism has been the focus of much discussion in the personality literature and popular press. Yet no previous studies have addressed whether there are age differences in the relative desirability of narcissistic and non-narcissistic self-descriptions, such as those presented as answer choices on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI; Raskin & Hall, 1979). In Study 1, younger age was associated with less negative evaluations of narcissistic (vs. non-narcissistic) statements in general, and more positive evaluations of narcissistic statements conveying leadership/authority. In Study 2, age was unrelated to perceiving a fictional target person as narcissistic, but younger age was associated with more positive connotations for targets described with narcissistic statements and less positive connotations for targets described with non-narcissistic statements, in terms of the inferences made about the target’s altruism, conscientiousness, social status, and self-esteem. In both studies, age differences in the relative desirability of narcissism remained statistically significant when adjusting for participants’ own narcissism, and the NPI showed measurement invariance across age. Despite perceiving narcissism similarly, adults of different ages view the desirability of NPI answer choices differently. These results are important when interpreting cross-generational differences in NPI scores, and can potentially facilitate cross-generational understanding.
References
2016). The effect of response format on the psychometric properties of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory: Consequences for item meaning and factor structure. Assessment, 23, 203–220. doi: 10.1177/1073191114568113
(2011). What does the Narcissistic Personality Inventory really measure? Assessment, 18, 67–87. doi: 10.1177/1073191110382845
(1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
(2006). Brief report: NPI-16 as a short measure of narcissism. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 440–450. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2005.03.002
(2010). Oh, grow up! Generational grumbling and the new life stage of emerging adulthood-commentary on Trzesniewski & Donnellan (2010). Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 89–92. doi: 10.1177/1745691609357016
(2009). The HEXACO-60: A short measure of the major dimensions of personality. Journal of Personality Assessment, 91, 340–345. doi: 10.1080/00223890902935878
(2006). Robust chi-square difference testing with mean and variance adjusted test statistics (Mplus Web Notes: No. 10). Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén. Retrieved from http://statmodel.com/download/webnotes/webnote10.pdf
(2010). The United States and the “culture of narcissism”: An examination of perceptions of national character. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1, 222–229. doi: 10.1177/1948550610366878
(2013). Humility and the development and repair of social bonds: Two longitudinal studies. Self and Identity, 12, 58–77. doi: 10.1080/15298868.2011.636509
(2016). Projecting perfection by hiding effort: Supplementing the perfectionistic self-presentation scale with a brief self-presentation measure. Self and Identity, 15, 245–261. doi: 10.1080/15298868.2015.1119188
(2003). Individual differences in narcissism: Inflated self-views across the lifespan and around the world. Journal of Research in Personality, 37, 469–486. doi: 10.1016/S0092-6566(03)00026-6
(2015). Gender differences in narcissism: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 141, 261–310. doi: 10.1037/a0038231
(1992). A practical and theoretical guide to measurement invariance in aging research. Experimental Aging Research, 18, 117–144. doi: 10.1080/03610739208253916
(2012). Differences in character among U.S. college students. Individual Differences Research, 10, 69–80.
(2014). A quiet ego quiets death anxiety: Humility as an existential anxiety buffer. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106, 610–623. doi: 10.1037/a0035814
(2004). Psychometric properties of the HEXACO personality inventory. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 39, 329–358. doi: 10.1207/s15327906mbr3902_8
(2013). “I can, therefore I must”: Fragility in the upper-middle classes. Development and Psychopathology, 25, 1529–1549. doi: 10.1017/S0954579413000758
(2004). Assessing factorial invariance in ordered-categorical measures. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 39, 479–515. doi: 10.1207/S15327906MBR3903_4
(2015). Mplus (Version 7.4) [Computer software]. Los Angeles, CA: Muthén & Muthén.
(1979). A Narcissistic Personality Inventory. Psychological Reports, 45, 590. doi: 10.2466/pr0.1979.45.2.590
(2010). It is developmental me, not generation me: Developmental changes are more important than generational changes in narcissism – commentary on Trzesniewski & Donnellan, 2010. Perspectives in Psychological Science, 5, 97–102. doi: 10.1177/1745691609357019
(2008). Do today’s young people really think they are so extraordinary? Psychological Science, 19, 181–188. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02065.x
(1998). Gender differences in the structure of narcissism: A multi-sample analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. Sex Roles, 38, 863–870. doi: 10.1023/A:1018833400411
(2008). Mapping the scale of the narcissism epidemic: Increases in narcissism 2002–2007 within ethnic groups. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 1619–1622. doi: 10.1016/j.jrp.2008.06.014
(2010). Birth cohort increases in narcissistic personality traits among American college students, 1982–2009. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 1, 99–106. doi: 10.1177/1948550609355719
(2008). Egos inflating over time: A cross-temporal meta-analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory. Journal of Personality, 76, 875–901. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2008.00507.x
(2014). Social benefits of humility: Initiating and maintaining romantic relationships. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 9, 313–321. doi: 10.1080/17439760.2014.898317
(1989). Shame, guilt, narcissism, and depression: Correlates and sex differences. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 6, 217–230. doi: 10.1037/0736-9735.6.2.217
(