Narcissism has become one of the most commonly discussed personality disorders outside of diagnosis. If asked most people would be able to define and list trait characteristics of what it is meant by someone being “narcissistic”. According to the DSM-5, narcissism is defined by an inflated sense of own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others. (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Although this definition is clear and concise in its criteria for NPD, it is considered a very controversial disorder. This is partly due to the amount of variability there is in the component of self-esteem being a key factor in narcissism. Self-esteem and its relation to narcissism has been examined by many different researchers
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Implicit self-esteem being the evaluation of the self occurring automatically and outside of consciousness and explicit being an evaluation that entails more conscious and reflective self-evaluation. Specifically however, this study wanted to highlight the importance of the discrepancies between explicit and implicit self-esteem and how they predict higher scores of narcissism. The study examined this by having participants complete various tests. For implicit self-esteem they completed the Implicit Association Test and explicit self-esteem a self-report questionnaire in patients with NPD in comparison to nonclinical and clinical and non-NPD (which was for this study was the Borderline Personality Disorder control group) The findings illustrated that NPD patients scored lower on explicit self-esteem compared to non-clinical controls but those with NPD who had low explicit and high implicit self-esteem had higher narcissism. The significance of this study demonstrations that one aspect of self-esteem is not a clear indicator for narcissism but instead the discrepancies between implicit and explicit self-esteem are the best predictors of NPD. The implications of the findings suggest that patients with NPD demonstrate that improving explicit self-esteem may be a factor in treatment but it is equally important to see the relation to implicit self-esteem as well because they are closely
Implicit self-esteem being the evaluation of the self occurring automatically and outside of consciousness and explicit being an evaluation that entails more conscious and reflective self-evaluation. Specifically however, this study wanted to highlight the importance of the discrepancies between explicit and implicit self-esteem and how they predict higher scores of narcissism. The study examined this by having participants complete various tests. For implicit self-esteem they completed the Implicit Association Test and explicit self-esteem a self-report questionnaire in patients with NPD in comparison to nonclinical and clinical and non-NPD (which was for this study was the Borderline Personality Disorder control group) The findings illustrated that NPD patients scored lower on explicit self-esteem compared to non-clinical controls but those with NPD who had low explicit and high implicit self-esteem had higher narcissism. The significance of this study demonstrations that one aspect of self-esteem is not a clear indicator for narcissism but instead the discrepancies between implicit and explicit self-esteem are the best predictors of NPD. The implications of the findings suggest that patients with NPD demonstrate that improving explicit self-esteem may be a factor in treatment but it is equally important to see the relation to implicit self-esteem as well because they are closely