Assessing the multidimensional structure of narcissism during the older school-age years.

• In Event: 3-108 - Recent Advances in the Study of Distortions in the Self / Narcissism

Integrative Statement

Introduction: A basic premise of developmental research on narcissism is that this form of self-distortion has a multidimensional structure. During the school-age years and early adolescence, the central inter-related features of narcissism are presumed to be (a) a grandiose perception of the self, and (b) a sense of entitlement. According to this perspective, children differ from each other in the degree to which they see themselves as superior to others and in the degree to which they deserve to receive special treatment from others. The concept of entitlement may be more toxic as it may lead to moments of defensiveness and aggression when expectations of preferred treatment do not occur.

The goals of the present study (a) to use items drawn from two existing measures of childhood narcissism (i.e. the Child Narcissism Scale (CNS) (Thomaes, Stegge, Bushman, Olthof, & Denissen, 2008) and the Narcissistic Personality Questionnaire for Children (NPQC) (Ang & Raine, 2009) to create measures separate factors for grandiosity and entitlement; (b) to assess whether the measure of entitlement, in comparison with the measure of grandiosity, more strongly associated with a measure of prosocial behavior at T1. We studied these hypotheses with older school-age children in Montreal, Canada and Barranquilla, a city in the Caribbean region of Colombia.

Participants and Methods: At each of two times separated by four month period, fifth- and sixth-grade girls and boys (N = 330) from 18 classrooms in schools in Montreal and Barranquilla completed the CNS and the NPQ measures and a peer-assessment measure. The peer assessment measure was used to create measures of proactive (i.e., helping without being asked to do so) and reactive prosocial behavior (i.e., help after being asked).

Results: A confirmatory factor analysis, conducted with Mplus, examined whether the items used to index grandiosity (e.g., I am a great example for other people to follow and I love showing all the things I can do) and four items to index entitlement (e.g. . People like me deserve something extra. It often happens that other people get the compliments that I actually deserve) fit on separate factor. The analyses from T1 and T2 showed an excellent level of fit (T1: (Χ2(29) = 43.34, p = .0523, CFI = .986, RMSEA = .039, SRMR = .03; T2 (Χ2(29) = 43.34, p = .0523, CFI = .986, RMSEA = .039, SRMR = .03). The correlations between the factors was .68, indicating a 46% overlap between them. Next an equality constrained procedure showed that each of these two factors was more negatively associated with the measure of proactive prosocial behavior than to the measure of reactive prosocial behavior.

Conclusion: These findings provide clear support the hypothesized two factor architecture of narcissism. Separate factors for grandiosity and entitlement were observed. They were also observed to be differentially associated with proactive and reactive help. This two factor measurement model will add to the multidimensional study of narcissism in the school-age and early adolescent periods.

Authors

• Rosalind "Poppy" Wilkinson, Concordia University
  Presenting Author

• Melisa Castellanos, Concordia University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ryan Joshua Persram, Concordia University
  Non-Presenting Author

• William M. Bukowski, Concordia University
  Non-Presenting Author