Belief in narcissistic insecurity: Perceptions of lay raters and their personality and psychopathology relations

This study advances research on interpersonal perceptions of narcissism by examining the degree to which overt displays of narcissism (e.g. being boastful and arrogant) are viewed by lay raters as resulting from covert insecurity. We wrote a brief set of items to assess this view and collected responses from a large sample of community adults (n = 5 528). We present results both for participants reporting (n = 617; patient subsample) and not reporting (n = 4 911; non-patient subsample) current psychiatric treatment. Results revealed that (1) overt grandiose narcissistic traits generally are viewed as being linked to covert insecurity and vulnerability and (2) items intended to assess this link define a meaningful construct, referred to here as Belief in Narcissistic Insecurity. Patient subsample participants also completed measures of personality and psychopathology. Belief in Narcissistic Insecurity showed modest positive relations with self-rated narcissism and with favourable views of one's personality (i.e. seeing oneself as extraverted and conscientious). These findings contribute to research aimed at explicating how perceptions of narcissism are related to self-views and interpersonal functioning. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.