Are narcissists resilient? Examining grandiose and vulnerable narcissism in the context of a three-dimensional model of resilience

Abstract

In this paper, we focused on the poorly understood and rarely researched relationship between resilience and narcissism, adopting the adjective-based measures of narcissism. We examine how levels of resilience are related to grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, based on a three-dimensional model of resilience (i.e., ecological resilience, engineering resilience, and adaptive capacity). Using self-report, cross-sectional data from a general Polish sample (N = 657), we found that grandiose narcissism was positively related to all three dimensions of resilience, while vulnerable narcissism was negatively related to them. Grandiose narcissism was most strongly associated with adaptive capacity where vulnerable narcissism was mostly strongly associated with engineering resilience. We discuss our findings in relation to the function of two forms of narcissism may yield different capacities for stress management and recovery after experiencing stressful events. Therefore, this research is focused on self-report and we look forward to expand our research by behavioral indices in the future.