Abstract
Psychologists claim that narcissists have inflated, exaggerated, or excessive self-esteem. Media reports state that narcissists suffer from self-esteem on steroids. The conclusion seems obvious: Narcissists have too much self-esteem. A growing body of research shows, however, that narcissism and self-esteem are only weakly related. What, then, separates narcissism from self-esteem? We argue that narcissism and self-esteem are rooted in distinct core beliefs—beliefs about the nature of the self, of others, and of the relationship between the self and others. These beliefs arise early in development, are cultivated by distinct socialization practices, and create unique behavioral patterns. Emerging experimental research shows that these beliefs can be changed through precise intervention, leading to changes at the level of narcissism and self-esteem. An important task for future research will be to develop interventions that simultaneously lower narcissism and raise self-esteem from an early age.
The writing of this article was supported by funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 705217 to Eddie Brummelman and a research priority area YIELD graduate program grant No. 022.006.013 to Çisem Gürel and Eddie Brummelman.
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Notes
- 1.
Even when we describe individuals, we would not and could not diagnose them as “narcissists.” Our chapter focuses on narcissism as an everyday, subclinical personality trait, not as a personality disorder.
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Brummelman, E., Gürel, Ç., Thomaes, S., Sedikides, C. (2018). What Separates Narcissism from Self-esteem? A Social-Cognitive Perspective. In: Hermann, A., Brunell, A., Foster, J. (eds) Handbook of Trait Narcissism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92171-6_5
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