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The Many Measures of Grandiose Narcissism

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Handbook of Trait Narcissism

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of measures available to researchers who study grandiose narcissism (GN). The purpose of this chapter is to provide a brief overview of some of the more popular measures of GN. Some of these measures attempt to capture GN as a single dimension, some as a multidimensional construct, and some tap into GN along with other related traits, such as vulnerable narcissism and psychopathy. Finally, some measures may be thought of as “special interest” measures that capture variants of GN, such as communal narcissism, as well as GN in special populations, such as children and adolescents. Although not intended to provide a fully exhaustive review of GN measures, this chapter should provide readers an idea about what is available in terms of GN measurement and best practices for assessing GN in the research context. In particular, researchers are encouraged to use multiple measures of GN whenever possible and employ statistical techniques that take advantage of psychometric diversity, such as structural equation modeling.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI; Pincus et al., 2009) also purports to measure grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. Although the PNI has proven to be a useful measure in many respects, the validity of its GN factor has come into question (Miller et al., 2014; Miller, Lynam, & Campbell, 2016a, 2016b). Because this chapter is going to be of most interest to researchers who study GN, we decided to exclude the PNI from this review.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology Department, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, USA

    Joshua D. Foster

  2. University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, USA

    Jennifer A. Brantley, Melissa L. Kern, Jan-Louw Kotze, Brett A. Slagel & Krisztina Szabo

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  1. Joshua D. Foster
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  2. Jennifer A. Brantley
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  3. Melissa L. Kern
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  4. Jan-Louw Kotze
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  5. Brett A. Slagel
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  6. Krisztina Szabo
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Correspondence to Joshua D. Foster .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Bradley University, Peoria, IL, USA

    Anthony D. Hermann

  2. Department of Psychology, Ohio State University at Mansfield, Mansfield, OH, USA

    Amy B. Brunell

  3. Department of Psychology, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, USA

    Joshua D. Foster

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Foster, J.D., Brantley, J.A., Kern, M.L., Kotze, JL., Slagel, B.A., Szabo, K. (2018). The Many Measures of Grandiose Narcissism. In: Hermann, A., Brunell, A., Foster, J. (eds) Handbook of Trait Narcissism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92171-6_12

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