The Narcissism Spectrum Model: A Synthetic View of Narcissistic Personality

Abstract

The narcissism spectrum model synthesizes extensive personality, social–psychological, and clinical evidence, building on existing knowledge about narcissistic grandiosity and vulnerability to reveal a view of narcissism that respects its clinical origins, embraces the diversity and complexity of its expression, and reflects extensive scientific evidence about the continuity between normal and abnormal personality expression. Critically, the proposed model addresses three key, inter-related problems that have plagued narcissism scholarship for more than a century. These problems can be summarized as follows: (a) What are the key features of narcissism? (b) How are they organized and related to each other? and (c) Why are they organized that way, that is, what accounts for their relationships? By conceptualizing narcissistic traits as manifested in transactional processes between individuals and their social environments, the model enables integration of existing theories of narcissism and thus provides a compelling perspective for future examination of narcissism and its developmental pathways.