Narcissistic self-esteem management.

Abstract

This study examines the relationships among hostility, grandiosity, dominance, narcissism, and self-esteem in samples of 84,57, and 300 Ss. The intercorrelations among various self-report and observer ratings of these constructs suggest that (a) hostility, grandiosity, dominance, and narcis-sism are substantially intercorrelated and form a coherent system of constructs and (b) the common variance in this system of constructs significantly predicts variations in Ss ' self-esteem. The notion that some people use grandiosity, dominance, and a more generalized narcissistic personality style to manage their hostility and maintain a sense of positive regard was evaluated using hierarchical analyses. The results of these analyses were consistent with this model. Raskin, Novacek, and Hogan (1991) studied the relationships among narcissism, defensive self-enhancement, and self-es-teem. They found that (a) narcissism is positively related to self-esteem, (b) defensive self-enhancement consists of two compo-nents, grandiosity and social desirability, which represent dif-ferent sources of variance in self-esteem, and (c) narcissism is related to grandiose self-enhancement rather than social desir-