A Principal-Components Analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and Further Evidence of Its Construct Validity

Abstract

We examined the internal and external validity of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI). Study 1 explored the internal structure of the NPI responses of 1,018 subjects. Using principal-components analysis, we analyzed the tetrachoric correlations among the NPI item responses and found evidence for a general construct of narcissism as well as seven first-order components, identified as Authority, Exhibitionism, Superiority, Vanity, Exploitativeness, Entitlement, and Self-Sufficiency. Study 2 explored the NPI's construct validity with respect to a variety of indexes derived from observational and self-report data in a sample of 57 subjects. Study 3 investigated the NPI's construct validity with respect to 128 subjects' self and ideal self-descriptions, and their congruency, on the Leary Interpersonal Check List. The results from Studies 2 and 3 tend to support the construct validity of the full-scale NPI and its component scales.