Gender predisposition to narcissism: stereotype or fact?

Most fashion magazines, modern literature as well as social networks contribute to our love for ourselves. They are attracting more and more people by using such bright headlines as: “You must love yourself more than anyone else!”, “Live only for yourself!”. But do people understand what self-love is? How strong should your love for yourself be? Is this love dangerous to others? When does a simple love for oneself turns into narcissism?

Narcissism is a character trait expressed by a very high self-esteem that is excessive and unjustified. In psychology, narcissism is considered to be a personality disorder. Accentuation of character is a sign that is within the clinical norm. There is a slight difference between the accentuation of narcissism and mental illness [1]. Unfortunately, until now it has been impossible to understand how subtle it is.

The term “narcissism” is almost always used with a negative connotation. However, narcissists do not always bring trouble to others. After all, it is not so bad to have an overestimated self-esteem and rejoice at one’s successes. For instance, people with constructive narcissism recognize their own worth, take a positive attitude toward themselves, accept themselves as they are, control their emotions and behavior as well and trust their intuition. Such people are very responsible, sociable and self-confident. These people enjoy every moment of their life and share these moments with other people.

Nevertheless, with vulnerable narcissism, the ability of a person to perceive oneself adequately is distorted. A person with this kind of narcissism self-affirms at the expense of other people, constantly gossips, one can even say that he is twofaced. Nevertheless, they are overly cautious and need for approval of the community [3]. This behavior is dangerous for others and for a man himself.

Literature review

A lot of research has been conducted on narcissism. Sigmund Freud wrote that narcissism is a perverted representation of one's body as a sexual object [4]. Later, this topic was developed by other psychologists and psychiatrists. Some believed that narcissism is an innate tendency of the individual to develop. Others called narcissism a serious personality disorder. Andre Green described the formation of narcissism and its structure, provided his point of view on the relationship between narcissism and fear, mental pain, and examined the specificity of bodily, intellectual and moral narcissism [5].

Likewise, studied the love relationships of people suffering from narcissism and came to the conclusion that, Narcissism was positively associated with extrinsic (attractive and successful) ideal standards and was negatively associated with intrinsic standards (warmth and intimacy) when controlling for extrinsic ideals. Relationships meeting extrinsic ideals were more satisfying for narcissists, but not non-narcissists. Relationships meeting intrinsic ideals were more satisfying for all participants, especially those low in narcissism. The effect for extrinsic traits was driven by Entitlement/Exploitativeness and Grandiose Exhibitionism, and the effect for intrinsic traits was driven by Entitlement/Exploitativeness [6].

The study of self-esteem of people suffering from narcissism showed that self-esteem is fully mediated in the association between grandiose and narcissism and emotion dysregulation, and partially mediated the association between vulnerable narcissism and emotion dysregulation [7]. Results of another study showed different patterns of association between narcissistic traits and explicit self-esteem, depending on phenotypic manifestations of narcissism [8].

The research conducted at the University of Münster showed that narcissistic admiration and rivalry are positively correlated dimensions, yet they have markedly different nomological networks and distinct intra- and interpersonal consequences [9].

Findings from SEM analyses showed that the links between narcissism and social anxiety / social self-efficacy were partially mediated by preference for online social interactions (POSI); however, the two types of narcissism. Vulnerable narcissism was positively associated with POSI, which was indirectly predicted problems forsights of social relations; in contrast, grandiose narcissism was only directly and positively associated with social self-efficacy and negatively with social anxiety [10].

We investigated gender differences in three facets of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) to reveal that the narcissism gender difference is driven by the Exploitative/Entitlement facet and Leadership/Authority facet. Further, we investigated a less-studied form of narcissism called vulnerable narcissism, which is marked by low self-esteem, neuroticism, and introversion, to find that (in contrast to the more commonly studied form of narcissism found in the DSM and the NPI) men and women did not differ on vulnerable narcissism [11].

A study was conducted to reveal that self-absorption and narcissism share a component of pathological self-focused attention, and that in narcissism a deregulatory mechanism of status search may be involved [12]. Having studied this topic, we hypothesized, that there is no gender predisposition to narcissism. Therefore, this study seeks to answer the question: Who is more prone to narcissism: men or women?

Materials and methods

We interviewed students (329 men and 329 women aged 18 to 21 years old), from different regions of Russia, who profess different religions on a 6-item NARQ (modified), with a 6-point scale, where 0 – “ this does not apply to me at all ”, and 6 – “ that's exactly me ”. The questions are presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire

• 1.    It annoys me that when I'm in the spotlight, another person pulls it over.

• 2.    I deserve to be perceived as a great personality.

• 3.    I want my rivals to fail.

• 4.    The fact that I am a very special person, gives me a lot of strength.

• 5.    I manage to be the center of attention thanks to my outstanding merits.

• 6.    It seems to me that most people are losers.

We carried out a statistical analysis using the F-Fisher criterion, which showed significant differences between men and women for all 6 evaluation criteria. The data are given in Table 2, Table 3, Table 4, Table 5, Table 6 and Table 7.

Women	Men	/ 1 -/ 2	(А-A)2	(/ 1 — / 2 )2 A
27	66	-39	1521	23,045
59	51	8	64	1,255
81	82	-1	1	0,012
91	60	31	961	16,017
44	35	9	81	2,314
27	35	-8	64	1,828
329	329	0		44,471

Table 3

Women	Men	f 1 - /2	(A—A) 2	(/ 1 — /2Г f 2
85	87	-2	4	0,046
79	56	23	529	9,45
94	82	12	144	1,76
49	56	-7	49	0,875
19	16	3	9	0,563
3	32	-29	841	26,281
329	329	0		38,975

Table 4

Women	Men	A-А	(/ 1 -/ 2 )2	(/ 1 — / 2 ) 2 / 2
111	94	17	289	3,075
84	52	32	1024	19,692
54	57	-3	9	0,158
43	42	1	1	0,024
18	30	-12	144	4,8
19	54	-35	1225	22,685
329	329	0		50,434

Women	Men	/ 1 -/ 2	(А-A)2	(/ 1 — / 2 )2 A
63	68	-5	25	0,368
69	49	20	400	8,163
90	64	26	676	10,563
55	70	-15	225	3,214
32	36	-4	16	0,445
20	42	-22	484	11,524
329	329	0		34,277

Table 6

Women	Men	f 1 - /2	(A—A) 2	(/ 1 — /2Г f 2
69	71	-2	4	0,056
82	56	26	676	12,071
84	85	-1	1	0,012
68	65	3	9	0,139
22	23	-1	1	0,044
4	29	-25	625	21,552
329	329	0		34,874

Table 7

Women	Men	A-А	(/ 1 -/ 2 )2	(/ 1 — / 2 ) 2 / 2
186	142	44	1936	13,634
75	53	22	484	9,132
38	38	0	0	0
17	49	-32	1024	20,898
5	26	-21	441	16,962
8	21	-13	169	8,048
329	329	0		68,674

Results

The statistical analysis allowed us to come to the following men vs women implications:

• •    men feel less annoyed than women in a situation when the attention is taken away from them;

• •    men tend to think they deserve to be perceived as a great personality;

• •    unlike women, men want to see their rivals fail;

• •    women are less inclined to think that they are special;

• •    most men believe that they are in the focus of one’s attention because of their merits;

• •    mostly men think that all people are losers.

Conclusion

Consequently, in this sample, men suffer more from narcissism than women. Therefore, our hypothesis has not been confirmed. However, the results can be distributed to the general population, since the sample is representative. Thus, we can conclude that in the modern world, men from 18 to 21 years are more inclined to narcissism than women of the same age group. Our further research will be aimed to identify the correlation between narcissism and religion.