Narcissism and the regulation of self-esteem through self-deception

Statement of the problem. The purpose of this study is to conduct an empirical investigation into Kohut's theory of self psychology, which posits that relationship exists between narcissism and the regulation of self-esteem through the mechanism of self-deception. The hypothesis is that narcissistic subjects use self-deception through exaggerated estimates of performance to protect a defensively high level of self-esteem. When this fails, they evidence significantly elevated levels of narcissism and self- or other-devaluation in attribution themes.; Methods. The design of this investigation is experimental and its statistical procedures included a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), univariate analyses of variance, and median tests. Subjects were selected from volunteer graduate students in counseling classes. Following an initial assessment for levels of narcissism using the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, 60 subjects were randomly assigned to either experimental or control groups of high or low levels of narcissism. All were given a non-verbal cognitive task (Raven's Progressive Matrices) and asked to estimate their performances. The experimental groups were given private, manipulated failure feedback. All groups were then assessed for accuracy of prediction of performance, level of self-esteem (Rosenberg Self-Esteem Inventory), three measures of narcissism (Exner Self-Focus Sentence Completion, Gerson Splitting Scale, and O'Brien Multiphasic Narcissism Inventory), and attribution themes. After subjects completed all inventories, they were debriefed.; Results. The results of the MANOVA showed significant main effects for level of narcissism and treatment. Univariate tests showed significance condition for self-focus (p = {dollar}<{dollar}.05), accuracy of prediction (p = {dollar}<{dollar}.01), splitting (p = {dollar}<{dollar}.01), and attributions (p = {dollar}<{dollar}.001). Level of self-esteem was significantly higher (p = {dollar}<{dollar}.001) for narcissistic subjects than non-narcissistic subjects.; Conclusions. Narcissistic subjects have a higher self-esteem than non-narcissists. They use inflated estimates of performance as a self-deception, engage in more self-focus, splitting, and devaluing attributions than non-narcissists or than non-stressed narcissistic subjects. The use of measures of self-esteem may be unsatisfactory for screening pathology. These findings lend empirical support to the theoretical views of self psychology.