Evidence for the Criterion Validity and Clinical Utility of the Pathological Narcissism Inventory
Open accessAbstract
In this study, the authors evaluated aspects of criterion validity and clinical utility of the grandiosity and vulnerability components of the Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI) using two undergraduate samples ( N = 299 and 500). Criterion validity was assessed by evaluating the correlations of narcissistic grandiosity and narcissistic vulnerability with established indices of normal personality traits, psychopathology and clinical concerns, and pathological personality traits. Overall, the pattern of correlations supported the convergent and discriminant validity of grandiose and vulnerable conceptualizations of pathological narcissism as measured by the PNI. Clinical utility was assessed by evaluating the extent to which clinicians without specific training in pathological narcissism as well as clinicians with expertise in pathological narcissism could accurately predict the correlates of PNI grandiosity and vulnerability with normal and pathological personality traits and psychopathology. The r contrast-cv coefficient provided a global index of accuracy in clinicians’ predictions that was more fully elaborated by examining systematic discrepancies across groups. Overall, novice and expert clinicians were generally able to predict criterion correlations, with some exceptions (e.g., counter to predictions, pathological narcissism was negatively associated with treatment resistance). These results provide further evidence regarding the validity and utility of the narcissistic grandiosity and narcissistic vulnerability constructs as measured by the PNI.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
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?
As assessed and conceptualized to date, vulnerable narcissism's hypothesized and empirically derived nomological networks are either unrelated or negatively related to the more prototypical profiles associated with grandiose narcissism.
“As assessed and conceptualized to date, vulnerable narcissism's hypothesized (e.g., Thomas et al. 2012, r = -.27) and empirically derived (Miller et al. 2010a, r = -.36;Miller et al. 2011, r = -.06)nomological networks are either unrelated or negatively related to the more prototypical profiles associated with grandiose narcissism.”
From Controversies in Narcissism (2017) · cites this paper as Thomas et al. 2012
The Discussion (page unavailable) distinguishes the correlates of grandiosity and vulnerability, supporting the claim that their profiles differ. But the Results (PNI criterion validity; page unavailable) also report shared correlates, and our copy does not report the cited r = −.27 or establish that their hypothesized nomological networks are unrelated or negatively related. (LLM, conf=0.83)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredVulnerable narcissism's most descriptive constructs include neuroticism or negative temperament, borderline personality disorder, low trust, and suicidality.
“The constructs viewed as most descriptive of this include neuroticism or negative temperament (and specific traits such as depression and anxiety), borderline personality disorder, low trust, and suicidality (Thomas et al. 2012).”
From Controversies in Narcissism (2017) · cites this paper as Thomas et al. 2012
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 37 · Cited by 113
Research works printed but not linked: 25
- Ackerman RA Witt EA Donnellan MB Trzesniewski KH Robins RW Kashy DA What does the narcissistic personality inventory really measure? Assessment 2010 18 67 87 20876550
- Bombel G Mihura JL Meyer GJ An examination of the construct validity of the Rorschach Mutuality of Autonomy (MOA) scale Journal of Personality Assessment 2009 91 227 237 19365763
- Cain NM Pincus AL Ansell EB Narcissism at the crossroads: Phenotypic description of pathological narcissism across clinical theory, social/personality psychology, and psychiatric diagnosis Clinical Psychology Review 2008 28 638 656 18029072
- Charnas JW Hilsenroth MJ Zodan J Blais MA Should I stay or should I go? Personality Assessment Inventory and Rorschach indices of early withdrawal from psychotherapy Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training 2010 47 484 499 21198237
- Clark LA Simms LJ Wu KD Casillas A Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality Manual for administration, scoring, and interpretation 2nd ed. in press
- Hendin HM Cheek JM Assessing hypersensitive narcissism: A reexamination of Murray’s Narcissism Scale Journal of Personality 1997 74 345 376
- Hopwood CJ Ansell EB Pincus AL Wright AGC Lukowitsky MR Roche MJ The circumplex structure of interpersonal sensitivities Journal of Personality 2011 79 708 740 21682725
- Hopwood CJ Thomas KM Markon KE Wright AGC Kreuger RF DSM-5 personality traits and DSM-IV personality disorders Journal of Abnormal Psychology in press PMC3909514 22250660
- John OP Naumann LP Soto CJ John OP Robins RW Pervin LA Paradigm Shift to the Integrative Big-Five Trait Taxonomy: History, Measurement, and Conceptual Issues Handbook of personality: Theory and research 2008 114 158 Guilford Press New York, NY
- McGraw KO Wong SP Forming inferences about some intraclass correlation coefficients Psychological Methods 1996 1 30 46
- McWilliams N Psychoanalytic Diagnosis, Second Edition: Understanding Personality Structure in the Clinical Process 2011 Guilford Press New York, NY
- Morey LC Hopwood CJ Archer Robert P. Smith Steven R. The Personality Assessment Inventory A Guide to Personality Assessment: Evaluation, application, and integration 2008 Routledge NY
- Pincus AL Ogrudniczuk JS The Pathological Narcissism Inventory Treating Pathological Narcissism American Psychological Association Washington, DC in press
- Pincus AL Ansell EB Pimentel CA Cain NM Wright AGB Levy KN Initial construction and validation of the pathological narcissism inventory Psychological Assessment 2009 21 365 379 19719348
- Raskin RN Terry H A principal-components analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and further evidence of its construct validity Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1988 54 890 902 3379585
- Rhodewalt F Morf C Self and interpersonal correlates of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory: A review and new findings Journal of Research in Personality 1995 29 1 23
- Samuel DB Widiger TA A meta-analytic review of the relationships between the five-factor model and DSM-IV-TR personality disorders: A facet level analysis Clinical Psychology Review 2008 28 1326 1342 18708274 PMC2614445
- Simms LJ Clark LA Steven Strack The Schedule for Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality (SNAP): A dimensional measure of traits relevant to personality and personality pathology Differentiating normal and abnormal personality 2006 431 450 Springer New York
- Smith GT On construct validity: Issues of Method and Measurement Psychological Assessment 2005 17 396 408 16393005
- Tritt SM Ryder AG Ring AJ Pincus AL Pathological narcissism and depressive temperament Journal of Affective Disorders 2010 122 280 284 19800134
- Watson PJ Maj M Akiskal HS Mezzich JE Okasha A Complexity of narcissism and a continuum of self-esteem regulation Evidence and experience in psychiatry, Volume *8 Personality disorders 2005 336 338 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd New York
- Westen D Rosenthal R Quantifying construct validity: Two simple measures Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 2003 84 608 618 12635920
- Westen D Rosenthal R Improving construct validity: Cronbach, Meehl, and Neurath’s ship Psychological Assessment 2005 17 409 412 16393006
- Wright AGC Lukowitsky MR Pincus AL Conroy DE The hierarchical factor structure and gender invariance of the Pathological Narcissism Inventory Assessment 2010 17 467 483 20634422
- Ziegler-Hill V Green BA Arnau RC Sisemore TB Meyers EM Trouble ahead, trouble behind: narcissism and early maladaptive schemas Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry 2010 42 96 103 20705282
- Authors
- Thomas, K. M., Wright, A. G. C., Lukowitsky, M. R., Donnellan, M. B., & Hopwood, C. J.
- Affiliations
- Michigan State University (US)
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- Albany Medical Center Hospital (US)
- Venue
- Assessment
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2012-02-06
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 135-145
- ISSN
- 1073-1911 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-3489
- PMC
- PMC3354008
- OpenAlex
- W2147564772
- Cited by
- 113
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 13 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 13 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 11 · 2014: 6 · 2013: 8 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 10.18
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.zora.uzh.ch
- Locations
- Assessment (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Zurich Open Repository and Archive (University of Zurich)
- Funders
- University of Minnesota
- National Institute of Mental Health (F31MH087053)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Disorders and Psychopathology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Psychological Testing and Assessment
- Keywords
- Pathological Narcissism Inventory, pathological narcissism, narcissistic grandiosity, narcissistic vulnerability, criterion validity, clinical utility, convergent and discriminant validity, personality traits, psychopathology, treatment resistance
- MeSH terms
- Anxiety, Humans, Personality Disorders, Personality Tests, Psychometrics, Statistics as Topic, Reproducibility of Results, Multivariate Analysis, Evidence-Based Practice
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
