Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T14:04:18.678Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

12a - A Call for Scientific Caution: Commentary on Narcissistic and Histrionic Personality Disorders

from Part III - Individual Disorders and Clusters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2020

Carl W. Lejuez
Affiliation:
University of Kansas
Kim L. Gratz
Affiliation:
University of Toledo, Ohio
Get access

Summary

Although Dawood, Wu, Bliton, and Pincus (this volume) generally describe narcissistic personality pathology, and NPD in particular, in a reasonable and thoughtful way that aligns with our own perspective, the authors’ treatment of narcissism as a largely monolithic and unified construct contributes towards obscuring three important and longstanding methodological issues in the literature. First, variability in the measurement of NPD makes conclusions about the functioning of NPD, broadly defined, vulnerable to error. Second, variability in vulnerable content contained in measures of NPD is likely to be exerting a biasing effect on the strength of internalizing correlates of NPD (e.g., suicidality). Third, the prevalence of small samples containing high levels of vulnerable features may bias researchers toward stronger relations between NPD and internalizing correlates. Overall, the authors urge researchers to empirically resolve disagreements about the structure and process of narcissistic personality pathology in order to move the field towards more precise definition and measurement, and greater scientific confidence in conclusions related to narcissism’s nomological network.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ackerman, R. A., Hands, A. J., Donnellan, M. B., Hopwood, C. J., & Witt, E. A. (2017). Experts’ views regarding the conceptualization of narcissism. Journal of Personality Disorders, 31, 346361.Google Scholar
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.). Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing.Google Scholar
Eaton, N. R., Rodriguez-Seijas, C., Krueger, R. F., Campbell, W. K., Grant, B. F., & Hasin, D. S. (2017). Narcissistic personality disorder and the structure of common mental disorders. Journal of Personality Disorders, 31, 449461.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ellison, W. D., Levy, K. N., Cain, N. M., Ansell, E. B., & Pincus, A. L. (2013). The impact of pathological narcissism on psychotherapy utilization, initial symptom severity, and early-treatment symptom change: A naturalistic investigation. Journal of Personality Assessment, 95, 291300.Google Scholar
Flack, J. C. (2012). Multiple time-scales and the developmental dynamics of social systems. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 367, 18021810.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fossati, A., Beauchaine, T. P., Grazioli, F., Carretta, I., Cortinovis, F., & Maffei, C. (2005). A latent structure analysis of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, narcissistic personality disorder criteria. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 46, 361367.Google Scholar
Hopwood, C. J., Donnellan, M. B., Ackerman, R. A., Thomas, K. M., Morey, L. C., & Skodol, A. E. (2013). The validity of the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire–4 Narcissistic Personality Disorder Scale for assessing pathological grandiosity. Journal of Personality Assessment, 95, 274283.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hyatt, C. S., Sleep, C. E., Lynam, D. R., Widiger, T. A., Campbell, W. K., & Miller, J. D. (2018). Ratings of affective and interpersonal tendencies differ for grandiose and vulnerable narcissism: A replication and extension of Gore & Widiger. Journal of Personality, 86(3), 422434.Google Scholar
Hyler, S. E. (1994). Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire 4 (PDQ-4). New York: New York State Psychiatric Institute.Google Scholar
Jauk, E., & Kaufman, S. B. (2018). The higher the score, the darker the core: The nonlinear association between grandiose and vulnerable narcissismFrontiers in Psychology, 9, 114.Google Scholar
Kendler, K. S., Aggen, S. H., Knudsen, G. P., Røysamb, E., Neale, M. C., & Reichborn-Kjennerud, T. (2011). The structure of genetic and environmental risk factors for syndromal and subsyndromal common DSM-IV axis I and all axis II disorders. American Journal of Psychiatry, 168, 2939.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, J. D., Hoffman, B. J., Gaughan, E. T., Gentile, B., Maples, J., & Campbell, W. K. (2011). Grandiose and vulnerable narcissism: A nomological network analysis. Journal of Personality, 79, 10131042.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, J. D., Lynam, D. R., Hyatt, C. S., & Campbell, W. K. (2017). Controversies in narcissism. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 13, 291315.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, J. D., McCain, J., Lynam, D. R., Few, L. R. Gentile, B., MacKillop, J., & Campbell, W. K. (2014). A comparison of the criterion validity of popular measures of narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder via the use of expert ratings. Psychological Assessment, 26, 958969.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Miller, J. D., Widiger, T. A., & Campbell, W. K. (2014). Vulnerable narcissism: Commentary for the special series ‘Narcissistic personality disorder: New perspectives on diagnosis and treatment’. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment, 5, 450451.Google Scholar
Millon, T., Millon, C., & Davis, R. D. (1994). MCMI–III Manual. Minneapolis, MN: National Computer Systems.Google Scholar
Morf, C. C., Schürch, E., Küfner, A., Siegrist, P., Vater, A., Back, M., … Schröder-Abé, M. (2017). Expanding the nomological net of the Pathological Narcissism Inventory: German validation and extension in a clinical inpatient sample. Assessment, 24, 419443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oltmanns, J. R., & Widiger, T. A. (2018). Assessment of fluctuation between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism: Development and initial validation of the FLUX scalesPsychological Assessment, 30, 16121624.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pincus, A. L., Ansell, E. B., Pimentel, C. A., Cain, N. M., Wright, A. G. C., & Levy, K. N. (2009). Initial construction and validation of the Pathological Narcissism Inventory. Psychological Assessment, 21, 365379.Google Scholar
Pincus, A. L., & Roche, M. J. (2011). Narcissistic grandiosity and narcissistic vulnerability. In Campbell, W. K. & Miller, J. D. (Eds.), Handbook of Narcissism and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (pp. 3140). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rhodewalt, F., Madrian, J. C., & Cheney, S. (1998). Narcissism, self-knowledge organization, and emotional reactivity: The effect of daily experiences on self-esteem and affect. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 7587.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Røysamb, E., Kendler, K. S., Tambs, K., Ørstavik, R. E., Neale, M. C., Aggen, S. H., … Reichborn-Kjennerud, T. (2011). The joint structure of DSM-IV Axis I and Axis II disorders. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 120, 198209.Google Scholar
Samuel, D. B., & Widiger, T. A. (2008). 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, 28, 13261342.Google Scholar
Saulsman, L. M., & Page, A. C. (2004). The five-factor model and personality disorder empirical literature: A meta-analytic review. Clinical Psychology Review, 23, 10551085.Google Scholar
Stinson, F. S., Dawson, D. A., Goldstein, R. B., Chou, S. P., Huang, B., Smith, S. M., … Grant, B. F. (2008). Prevalence, correlates, disability, and comorbidity of DSM-IV narcissistic personality disorder: Results from the Wave 2 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 69, 10331045.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vater, A., Schröder-Abé, M., Ritter, K., Renneberg, B., Schulze, L., Bosson, J. K., & Roepke, S. (2013). The Narcissistic Personality Inventory: A useful tool for assessing pathological narcissism? Evidence from patients with narcissistic personality disorder. Journal of Personality Assessment, 95, 301308.Google Scholar
Wright, A. G. C., & Simms, L. J. (2016). Stability and fluctuation of personality disorder features in daily life. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 125, 641656.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×