Psychosocial antecedents of narcissistic personality syndrome

Long-Term Costs of Inflated Self-Estimate on Academic Performance among Adolescent Students: A Case of Second-Language Achievements

Past studies suggest that the adaptive or maladaptive consequences of inflated self-estimate, one form of positive illusions, require further investigation. 308 freshmen at a junior college (164 women, 144 men; M age = 19.8 yr., SD = 1.1) participated in a longitudinal study during a 2-yr. period. There were three assessments of short- and long-term effects of overly positive self-estimates on second-language achievement. Students' overestimation of subsequent performance appears to be associated with lower achievement. Those students with apparently inflated self-estimates performed marginally better on the first assessment but worse in the second and final assessments. Students with more accurate self-estimates showed improvement on all assessments. The findings suggested that overinflated self-estimates, i.e., positive illusions, among adolescent students might lead to a lower achievement over the long term.

The relationship of death anxiety with age and psychosocial maturity

For this study, 194 respondents completed a biographical data sheet, the Templer (1970) Death Anxiety Scale and the Constantinople (1973) Inventory of Psychosocial Development to help assess the relationship among death anxiety, age, and psychosocial maturity. Findings showed that psychosocial maturity was a better predictor of death anxiety than age was. However, both variables were significantly negatively correlated with death anxiety, revealing that as psychosocial maturity and age increase, death anxiety decreases.

Toward an assessment of the construct validity of four measures of narcissism

In recent years there has been growing conceptual interest in narcissism, coupled with the rapid development of several paper and pencil measures. Clearly, construct validation should be performed prior to the adoption of any measure. This study reports on the construct validation of four scales that purport to measure narcissism. A conceptual definition of narcissism is provided, and a number of empirical analyses are performed, including examination of internal consistency reliabilities, intercorrelations among the four narcissism scales, and correlations with related and unrelated measures. Three of the four scales were found to be consistently related to each other, and demonstrated similar patterns of substantive and discriminant validity. A factor analysis, performed to examine the structure of the four narcissism measures, suggests four dimensions: desire for attention, admiration, and authority; feelings of inadequacy, unhappiness, and worry; disturbances in interpersonal relationships (exploitation, sense of entitlement, lack of empathy); and sensitivity to criticism and defeat. Implications of the results are discussed.