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It's Not That Great Anymore: The Central Role of Defense Mechanisms in Grandiose and Vulnerable Narcissism
Objectives: The concept of narcissism contains a yet unresolved paradox: Its grandiose facet depicts the psychopathological core but is often associated with life-satisfaction and overall functioning, whereas its vulnerable facet is associated with psychological distress, but still not included in t...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8226035/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34177651 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.661948 |
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author | Kampe, Leonie Bohn, Johannes Remmers, Carina Hörz-Sagstetter, Susanne |
author_facet | Kampe, Leonie Bohn, Johannes Remmers, Carina Hörz-Sagstetter, Susanne |
author_sort | Kampe, Leonie |
collection | PubMed |
description | Objectives: The concept of narcissism contains a yet unresolved paradox: Its grandiose facet depicts the psychopathological core but is often associated with life-satisfaction and overall functioning, whereas its vulnerable facet is associated with psychological distress, but still not included in the international classification systems. Our goal was to investigate the relationship between the two facets of narcissism expecting underlying defense mechanisms to be core elements. First, we aimed to identify defense mechanisms specific to grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Second, we explored how both facets are differentially associated with psychological distress, assuming that grandiose narcissism would be associated with less psychological distress than vulnerable narcissism. Third, we investigated the mediating role of defense mechanisms between narcissism and psychological distress. Methods: In a non-clinical sample of N = 254 individuals, the Pathological Narcissism Inventory was used for the assessment of grandiose and vulnerable facets of narcissism, the Defense Style Questionnaire for defense mechanisms, and the Brief Symptom Inventory for psychological distress. Structural equation modeling was employed to identify distinct factors of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Associations between specific defense mechanisms and both facets were calculated. Furthermore, the direct association between both facets and psychological distress was examined. We finally explored whether defense mechanisms mediate the association between distress and both grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Results: A distinct pattern of defense mechanisms for each facet of narcissism could be extracted: Both facets showed significant positive correlations with specific intermediate and all maladaptive defense mechanisms. Only grandiose narcissism showed significant positive correlations with adaptive defenses. Vulnerable narcissism showed negative correlations with all adaptive defenses. Specifically, grandiose narcissism was significantly related to anticipation, pseudo-altruism, rationalization, and dissociation, whereas vulnerable narcissism was negatively related to all these defense mechanisms. While grandiose narcissism was not related to psychological distress, vulnerable narcissism showed high correlations with psychological distress. Intriguingly, mediator analysis found that grandiose narcissism was related to psychological distress when mediated by maladaptive defense mechanisms. Discussion: The role of defense mechanisms is central for a differentiated understanding of the two different faces of narcissism. The relevance of assessing defense mechanisms in clinical settings, and related empirical findings are discussed. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8226035 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-82260352021-06-26 It's Not That Great Anymore: The Central Role of Defense Mechanisms in Grandiose and Vulnerable Narcissism Kampe, Leonie Bohn, Johannes Remmers, Carina Hörz-Sagstetter, Susanne Front Psychiatry Psychiatry Objectives: The concept of narcissism contains a yet unresolved paradox: Its grandiose facet depicts the psychopathological core but is often associated with life-satisfaction and overall functioning, whereas its vulnerable facet is associated with psychological distress, but still not included in the international classification systems. Our goal was to investigate the relationship between the two facets of narcissism expecting underlying defense mechanisms to be core elements. First, we aimed to identify defense mechanisms specific to grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Second, we explored how both facets are differentially associated with psychological distress, assuming that grandiose narcissism would be associated with less psychological distress than vulnerable narcissism. Third, we investigated the mediating role of defense mechanisms between narcissism and psychological distress. Methods: In a non-clinical sample of N = 254 individuals, the Pathological Narcissism Inventory was used for the assessment of grandiose and vulnerable facets of narcissism, the Defense Style Questionnaire for defense mechanisms, and the Brief Symptom Inventory for psychological distress. Structural equation modeling was employed to identify distinct factors of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Associations between specific defense mechanisms and both facets were calculated. Furthermore, the direct association between both facets and psychological distress was examined. We finally explored whether defense mechanisms mediate the association between distress and both grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Results: A distinct pattern of defense mechanisms for each facet of narcissism could be extracted: Both facets showed significant positive correlations with specific intermediate and all maladaptive defense mechanisms. Only grandiose narcissism showed significant positive correlations with adaptive defenses. Vulnerable narcissism showed negative correlations with all adaptive defenses. Specifically, grandiose narcissism was significantly related to anticipation, pseudo-altruism, rationalization, and dissociation, whereas vulnerable narcissism was negatively related to all these defense mechanisms. While grandiose narcissism was not related to psychological distress, vulnerable narcissism showed high correlations with psychological distress. Intriguingly, mediator analysis found that grandiose narcissism was related to psychological distress when mediated by maladaptive defense mechanisms. Discussion: The role of defense mechanisms is central for a differentiated understanding of the two different faces of narcissism. The relevance of assessing defense mechanisms in clinical settings, and related empirical findings are discussed. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-06-11 /pmc/articles/PMC8226035/ /pubmed/34177651 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.661948 Text en Copyright © 2021 Kampe, Bohn, Remmers and Hörz-Sagstetter. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychiatry Kampe, Leonie Bohn, Johannes Remmers, Carina Hörz-Sagstetter, Susanne It's Not That Great Anymore: The Central Role of Defense Mechanisms in Grandiose and Vulnerable Narcissism |
title | It's Not That Great Anymore: The Central Role of Defense Mechanisms in Grandiose and Vulnerable Narcissism |
title_full | It's Not That Great Anymore: The Central Role of Defense Mechanisms in Grandiose and Vulnerable Narcissism |
title_fullStr | It's Not That Great Anymore: The Central Role of Defense Mechanisms in Grandiose and Vulnerable Narcissism |
title_full_unstemmed | It's Not That Great Anymore: The Central Role of Defense Mechanisms in Grandiose and Vulnerable Narcissism |
title_short | It's Not That Great Anymore: The Central Role of Defense Mechanisms in Grandiose and Vulnerable Narcissism |
title_sort | it's not that great anymore: the central role of defense mechanisms in grandiose and vulnerable narcissism |
topic | Psychiatry |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8226035/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34177651 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2021.661948 |
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