Support for the three-factor model of narcissism and its personality underpinnings through the lens of the network psychometrics

Abstract

Recent literature on narcissism argues that there are three factors covering the construct: agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic. Within the current study, we aim to (a) empirically test whether this hypothesized structure reproduces using, for the first time, network psychometrics with eight distinct narcissism measures as well as reanalysing data from eleven narcissism measures from Crowe et al. (2019) and (b) scrutinize the personality underpinnings of the differentiated facets through the lens of the circumplex of personality metatraits (CPM) model. Within the study, N = 465 Polish adults were administered eight distinct narcissism measures, comprising 13 scales capturing different aspects of narcissistic personality and a measure of personality metatraits. Results revealed that the three-factor structure reproduces well in the network approach across both data sets. The circumplex analyses provided further evidence for the personality underpinnings of the three factors. We discuss the role of pathological narcissism within the three-factor conceptualization of narcissism. Findings of the current article facilitate the understanding of narcissistic personality. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).