Abstract
Whereas most past research has investigated narcissism as a stable tendency to be grandiose, self-focused, and vain, people’s narcissistic tendencies may wax and wane across different situations. Here, we examine how narcissism may function as a personality process or state. That is, people display fluctuations in state narcissism that vary around their more chronic, dispositional levels of narcissism. We begin by reviewing relevant theoretical models of narcissism and recent empirical research examining state narcissism, and then discuss similarities and differences between trait and state narcissism. Last, we discuss future research needed to better understand the within-person variability in people’s narcissistic tendencies.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ames, D. R., Rose, P., & Anderson, C. P. (2006). The NPI-16 as a short measure of narcissism. Journal of Research in Personality, 40, 440–450. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2005.03.002
Baird, B. M., Le, K., & Lucas, R. E. (2006). On the nature of intraindividual personality variability: Reliability, validity, and associations with well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 512–527. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.90.3.512
Campbell, W. K., & Foster, J. D. (2007). The narcissistic self: Background, an extended agency model, and ongoing controversies. In C. Sedikides & S. Spencer (Eds.), Frontiers in social psychology: The self (pp. 115–138). Philadelphia: Psychology Press.
Cervone, D., & Shoda, Y. (Eds.). (1999). The coherence of personality: Social-cognitive bases of consistency, variability, and organization. New York: Guilford Press.
Church, A. T., Katigbak, M. S., Ching, C. M., Zhang, H., Shen, J., Arias, R. M., et al. (2013). Within individual variability in self-concepts and personality states: Applying density distribution and situation-behaviour approaches across cultures. Journal of Research in Personality, 47, 922–935. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2013.09.002
Diener, E. D., Emmons, R. A., Larsen, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71–75. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327752jpa4901_13
Finnigan, K. M., & Vazire, S. (2017). The incremental validity of average state self-reports over global self-reports of personality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspp0000136
Fleeson, W. (2001). Toward a structure-and process-integrated view of personality: Traits as density distributions of states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 1011–1027. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.80.6.1011
Fleeson, W. (2007). Situation-based contingencies underlying trait-content manifestation in behaviour. Journal of Personality, 75, 825–862. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.6.1409
Fleeson, W., & Jayawickreme, E. (2015). Whole trait theory. Journal of Research in Personality, 56, 82–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2014.10.009
Fleeson, W., Malanos, A. B., & Achille, N. M. (2002). An intraindividual process approach to the relationship between extraversion and positive affect: Is acting extraverted as “good” as being extraverted? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1409–1422. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.83.6.1409
Foster, J. D., & Brennan, J. C. (2011). Narcissism, the agency model, and approach-avoidance motivation. In W. K. Campbell & J. D. Miller (Eds.), The handbook of narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder (pp. 89–100). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Gentile, B., Twenge, J. M., Freeman, E. C., & Campbell, W. K. (2012). The effect of social networking websites on positive self-views: An experimental investigation. Computers in Human Behavior, 28, 1929–1933. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.05.012
Geukes, K., Nestler, S., Hutteman, R., Küfner, A. C., & Back, M. D. (2016). Trait personality and state variability: Predicting individual differences in within-and cross-context fluctuations in affect, self-evaluations, and behavior in everyday life. Journal of Research in Personality. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2016.06.003
Giacomin, M., & Jordan, C. H. (2014). Down-regulating narcissistic tendencies: Communal focus reduces state narcissism. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 488–500. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167213516635
Giacomin, M., & Jordan, C. H. (2016a). The wax and wane of narcissism: Grandiose narcissism as a process or state. Journal of Personality, 84, 154–164. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12148
Giacomin, M., & Jordan, C. H. (2016b). Self-focused and feeling fine: Assessing state narcissism and its relation to well-being. Journal of Research in Personality, 63, 12–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2016.04.009
Heller, D., Watson, D., Komar, J., Min, J. A., & Perunovic, W. Q. E. (2007). Contextualized personality: Traditional and new assessment procedures. Journal of Personality, 75, 1229–1254. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2007.00474.x
Holtzman, N. S., Vazire, S., & Mehl, M. R. (2010). Sounds like a narcissist: Behavioral manifestations of narcissism in everyday life. Journal of Research in Personality, 44, 478–484. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2010.06.001
Horton, R. S., Reid, C. A., Barber, J. M., Miracle, J., & Green, J. D. (2014). An experimental investigation of the influence of agentic and communal Facebook use on grandiose narcissism. Computers in Human Behavior, 35, 93–98. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.02.038
Konrath, S., Meier, B. P., & Bushman, B. J. (2014). Development and validation of the single item narcissism scale (SINS). PLoS One, 9(8), e103469. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103469
Li, C., Sun, Y., Ho, M. Y., You, J., Shaver, P. R., & Wong, Z. (2015). State narcissism and aggression: The mediating roles of anger and hostile attribution bias. Aggressive Behavior, 9999, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21629
Maltby, J. (2010). An interest in fame: Confirming the measurement and empirical conceptualization of fame interest. British Journal of Psychology, 101, 411–432. https://doi.org/10.1348/000712609X466568
Mehl, M. R., Pennebaker, J. W., Crow, D. M., Dabbs, J., & Price, J. H. (2001). The Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR): A device for sampling naturalistic daily activities and conversations. Behavior Research Methods, 33, 517–523. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195410
Mischel, W., & Shoda, Y. (1995). A cognitive-affective system theory of personality: Reconceptualizing situations, dispositions, dynamics, and invariance in personality structure. Psychological Review, 102, 246–268. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.102.2.246
Morf, C. C., & Rhodewalt, F. (2001). Unraveling the paradoxes of narcissism: A dynamic self-regulatory processing model. Psychological Inquiry, 12, 177–196. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327965PLI1204_1
Raskin, R., & Terry, H. (1988). A principal-components analysis of the narcissistic personality inventory and further evidence of its construct validity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 890–902. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.5.890
Robins, R. W., Hendin, H. M., & Trzesniewski, K. H. (2001). Measuring global self-esteem: Construct validation of a single-item measure and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 151–161.
Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sakellaropoulo, M., & Baldwin, M. W. (2007). The hidden sides of self-esteem: Two dimensions of implicit self-esteem and their relation to narcissistic reactions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 995–1001. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2006.10.009
Sedikides, C., Rudich, E. A., Gregg, A. P., Kumashiro, M., & Rusbult, C. (2004). Are normal narcissists psychologically healthy?: Self-esteem matters. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 400–416. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.87.3.400
Wai, M., & Tiliopoulos, N. (2012). The affective and cognitive empathic nature of the dark triad of personality. Personality and Individual Differences, 52, 794–799. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2012.01.008
Watson, P. J., & Morris, R. J. (1991). Narcissism, empathy and social desirability. Personality and Individual Differences, 12, 575–579. https://doi.org/10.1016/0191-8869(91)30253-8
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. Journal of personality and social psychology, 54(6), 1063–1070.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Giacomin, M., Jordan, C.H. (2018). State Narcissism. In: Hermann, A., Brunell, A., Foster, J. (eds) Handbook of Trait Narcissism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92171-6_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92171-6_11
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-92170-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-92171-6
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)