The Narcissistic Personality Inventory: A Useful Tool for Assessing Pathological Narcissism? Evidence From Patients With Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Abstract
The Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) has dominated research on narcissism in the field of social and personality psychology. Surprisingly, it is unclear whether the NPI is useful for identifying pathological narcissism in patients with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). The goal of this study was to close this research gap. We used an extreme-group approach by including NPD patients and healthy controls and comparing their narcissism scores. We further investigated whether explicit self-esteem (assessed with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale) suppressed the relationship between group membership and NPI narcissism. According to our results, NPD patients do not score higher on the NPI in comparison to healthy controls. Analysis of indirect effects revealed that differences in NPI scores are suppressed by NPD patients' low self-esteem. Our results indicate that the NPI is not a valid indicator of NPD, unless one controls for self-esteem. Implications for future research are discussed.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
It is challenging to interpret research from clinical samples, especially inpatient samples, as these cases tend to demonstrate very high comorbidity with other disorders (e.g., 60% for borderline personality disorder and approximately 66% for affective disorders) that are not traditionally considered near-neighbor disorders and whose co-presence may fundamentally affect the presentation of theseN
“It is challenging to interpret research from clinical samples, especially inpatient samples (e.g., Morf et al. 2016, Vater et al. 2013), as these cases tend to demonstrate very high comorbidity with other disorders [e.g., 60% for borderline personality disorder (Vater et al. 2013) and approximately 66% for affective disorders (Morf et al. 2016)] that are not traditionally considered near-neighbor”
From Controversies in Narcissism (2017) · cites this paper as Vater et al. 2013
Cites
The dark triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy
Paulhus, D. L., & Williams, K. M. (2002) · Journal of Research in Personality · doi:10.1016/s0092-6566(02)00505-6 · Cited by 5,265 · see citing works
Equivalence of the Mediation, Confounding and Suppression Effect
MacKinnon, D. P., Krull, J. L., & Lockwood, C. M. (2000) · Prevention Science · doi:10.1023/a:1026595011371 · Cited by 4,188 · see citing works
A Narcissistic Personality Inventory.
Raskin, R. N., & Hall, C. S. (1979) · Psychological Reports · doi:10.2466/pr0.1979.45.2.590 · Cited by 1,975 · see citing works
Pathological narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder
Pincus, A. L., & Lukowitsky, M. R. (2010) · Annual Review of Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev.clinpsy.121208.131215 · Cited by 1,082 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Many researchers in social and personality psychology use the terms normal or subclinical narcissism to refer to nonclinical levels of narcissistic tendencies (e.g., Miller & Campbell, 2008; Pincus & Lukowitsky, 2010; Zeigler-Hill, Green, Arnau, Sisemore, & Myers, 2011).”
BackgroundTwo replicable suppressor situations in personality research
Paulhus, D. L., Robins, R. W., Trzesniewski, K. H., & Tracy, J. L. (2004) · Multivariate Behavioral Research · doi:10.1207/s15327906mbr3902_7 · Cited by 631 · see citing works
Lack of empathy in patients with narcissistic personality disorder
Ritter, K., Dziobek, I., Preißler, S., Rüter, A., Vater, A., Fydrich, T., Lammers, C.-H., Heekeren, H. R., & Roepke, S. (2011) · Psychiatry Research · doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2010.09.013 · Cited by 287 · see citing works
Self-citationConvergence of Narcissism Measures From the Perspective of General Personality Functioning
Samuel, D. B., & Widiger, T. A. (2008) · Assessment · doi:10.1177/1073191108314278 · Cited by 99 · see citing works
Cramer, P. (2011) · Journal of Research in Personality · doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2010.11.004 · Cited by 97 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Miller, J. D., Lynam, D. R., Hyatt, C. S., & Campbell, W. K. (2017) · Annual Review of Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-clinpsy-032816-045244 · Cited by 572 · see citing works
Gray matter abnormalities in patients with narcissistic personality disorder
Schulze, L., Dziobek, I., Vater, A., Heekeren, H. R., Bajbouj, M., Renneberg, B., Heuser, I., & Roepke, S. (2013) · Journal of Psychiatric Research · doi:10.1016/j.jpsychires.2013.05.017 · Cited by 102 · see citing works
Self-citationShame in patients with narcissistic personality disorder
Ritter, K., Vater, A., Rüsch, N., Schröder-Abé, M., Schütz, A., Fydrich, T., Lammers, C.-H., & Roepke, S. (2014) · Psychiatry Research · doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2013.11.019 · Cited by 81 · see citing works
Self-citationThe Lifespan Self-Esteem Scale: Initial Validation of a New Measure of Global Self-Esteem
Harris, M. A., Donnellan, M. B., & Trzesniewski, K. H. (2018) · Journal of Personality Assessment · doi:10.1080/00223891.2016.1278380 · Cited by 70 · see citing works
- Authors
- Vater, A., Schröder-Abé, M., Ritter, K., Renneberg, B., Schulze, L., Bosson, J. K., & Roepke, S.
- Affiliations
- Freie Universität Berlin (DE)
- University of South Florida (US)
- ORCID
- Vater, Aline
- Venue
- Journal of Personality Assessment
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2013-05
- Volume
- 95
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 301-308
- ISSN
- 0022-3891 (ISSN-L)
- 1532-7752
- OpenAlex
- W601338748
- Cited by
- 53
- References
- 8
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 7 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 9
- FWCI
- 7.26
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Personality Assessment (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Digital Commons - University of South Florida (University of South Florida) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Disorders and Psychopathology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Psychological Testing and Assessment
- Keywords
- Narcissistic Personality Inventory, narcissistic personality disorder, pathological narcissism, self-esteem, measurement validity, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, indirect effects
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Female, Humans, Male, Narcissism, Personality Disorders, Personality Inventory, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Self Concept
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
