Narcissism and relational capacity: the contribution of identity integration and social concordance

Narcissism is often seen as a unidimensional construct, however, more recently, a plethora of studies have pointed to its multidimensional nature. Despite this, the role of narcissism as a multifaceted construct in the quality of interpersonal relationships has rarely been tested. In addition, less is known about what mechanisms may underly this association. In this study, we investigated how grandiose, vulnerable, and isolated narcissism, are associated with relational capacity and whether identity integration and social concordance may underly these associations. The sample included 222 male participants with a mean age of 37.71 ( SD = 13.25). Of these, 157 were participants from the community, and 65 were in outpatient treatment at four Dutch forensic centers. The Dutch Narcissism Scale was used to measure three forms of narcissism, while The Severity Indices of Personality Problems – Short Form was used to measure identity integration, social concordance, and relational capacity. The mediation model was tested in R and adjusted for age and criminal behavior. Despite significant bivariate correlations between three narcissistic types and relational capacity only isolated narcissism was directly and negatively associated with relational capacity in the mediation model. Likewise, both identity integration and social concordance were positively associated with relational capacity. Grandiose narcissism was positively, while vulnerable narcissism was negatively associated with relational capacity, but only through identity integration. Identity integration was also a significant mediator in the association between isolated narcissism and relational capacity along with social concordance. Finally, criminal behavior appeared to be the only significant covariate indicating that forensic outpatients (versus community participants) were more likely to have impaired relational capacity. The findings of this study could be useful in clinical practice to improve the treatment of narcissistic individuals and make them less harmful to others in social and intimate relationships.