Narcissistic Personality Inventory factors, splitting, and self-consciousness

Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI; Emmons, 1984) factors were correlated with Splitting, Self-Consciousness, Depression, Anxiety, and Self-Esteem. Exploitativeness/Entitlement was largely maladaptive, whereas Leadership/Authority, Superiority/Arrogance, and Self-Absorption/Self-Admiration yielded ambiguous outcomes. Partialing out Exploitativeness/Entitlement uncovered stronger ties of the other factors with adjustment, and controlling for the other three dimensions caused Exploitativeness/Entitlement to appear more pathological. Raskin and Terry (1988) NPI factors and a narcissistic Superiority Scale were similarly affected by partialing, appearing healthier when controlling for "maladaptive" narcissism and more unhealthy when removing the more "adaptive" variance. These data suggest that complex entanglements between adaptive and maladaptive forms of self-love may make it difficult to understand and assess pathological narcissism.