Expanding the measurement and understanding of narcissism across cultures

Abstract

Narcissism is a personality construct that has had a contentious past in its conceptualisation, measurement, and by extension the understanding of its manifestation. In more recent literature, narcissism is understood as consisting of grandiose and vulnerable subtypes with a shared core. There is, however, limited consensus on what forms this core, with entitlement being proposed by the narcissism spectrum model and antagonism by the five-factor model of narcissism. Measures of narcissism are plentiful, but none seems to comprehensively reflect the current theorising of the construct. In this thesis, we aimed to construct a measure that reflects a unified approach to narcissism and clarify its theoretical conceptualisation across cultures.

This thesis presents three papers designed to achieve the overall aim of expanding our measurement and understanding of narcissism. To provide a balanced approach to scale construction we integrated both classical test theory and item response theory approaches. In the first paper we report on using two popular measures of narcissism to construct the 29-item Unified Narcissism Scale (UNS) with a sample predominantly from the United States (N = 1002). The study demonstrated a five-factor first-order structure consisting of Leadership, Vanity, Contingent Self-Esteem, Grandiose Fantasies and Hiding One's Needs. The first two factors loaded onto a second-order Grandiose Narcissism factor and the latter three onto a second-order Vulnerable Narcissism factor. The two second-order factors, in turn, loaded onto a common third-order Narcissism factor. We also demonstrated the scale's reliability, measurement invariance for gender, and external validity. Despite the strengths of the scale, we found certain conceptual confusion at the factor level.

In our second paper, we report on two studies where we further revised the scale to address its limitations and assessed its cross-cultural utility. Study 1 revised the UNS in a sample of 395 participants from the United States. Study 2 investigated the scale's cross-cultural performance in the Chinese language in China (N = 326) and in the English language in Sri Lanka (N = 350) and constructed a final 35-item measure named the Unified Narcissism Scale-Revised (UNS-R). The cross-cultural research replicated the hierarchical factor structure and provided further evidence for the scale's reliability, validity, and measurement invariance. We also confirmed the centrality of entitlement to narcissism, providing support for the narcissism spectrum model.

Finally, we report on two studies in our third paper. Study 1 assessed the incremental validity of the UNS-R in Australia (N = 309). The UNS-R Grandiose Narcissism subscale showed superior performance to existing measures of grandiose narcissism, and the Vulnerable Narcissism subscale performed similarly to existing measures of vulnerable narcissism. The study also demonstrated that the five UNS-R subscales differentially predicted external variables. In Study 2 we reanalysed data from Study 1 and Paper 2 and constructed a cross-culturally invariant prototype short-form of the UNS-R. This short form enables researchers to further investigate narcissism across cultures.

Across three papers (five studies) we have created a measure of narcissism that reflects contemporary theorising and have addressed the conceptual confusion that has sustained in the literature. In doing so, we hope the measure will aid in expanding the nomological network of narcissism from a consensual theoretical perspective. Show more