Narcissism has a pervasive and often destructive impact on a wide range of human behaviors. These issues have not gone unnoticed in the public forum. Whether it is the self-absorbed characters in "Sex in the City" and the "Real World," or the corrupt executives at energy companies, society is beginning to identify narcissism as an extensive cultural problem. Our research at the UGA Narcissism Lab focuses on the role of narcissism in several areas, including romantic relationships, small groups, and, more recently, organizational decision making. Links from this page address specific research areas. We have also provided a (non-exhaustive!) list of what we consider to be some interesting and important scientific literature on narcissism.

What is narcissism?

Narcissism is a personality variable the core of which is an inflated view of the self. Narcissists think that they are more intelligent, physically attractive, clever and successful than they actually are. These views are accompanied by a sense of entitlement and "specialness." Maintaining a distorted view of oneself can be tricky, thus narcissists must resort to a host of strategies to keep themselves feeling positively. Some of these strategies are simple cognitive distortions. For example, narcissists fantasize about success and power and tend to blame the situation when they fail. Other of these strategies are interpersonal. For example, narcissists seek attention and admiration. This may take the form of bragging or "showing-off"; it also may involve the narcissist being charming and flattering to others in the hopes that this flattery will be returned. Narcissists are also highly competitive. Importantly, narcissists are not typically "good sports": They are willing to blame their co-workers for any failures while stealing the spotlight after successes (this does wonders in a work environment!). Narcissists like to associate with popular and successful others. They garner esteem from rubbing shoulders with important others. This behavior may result in "trophy" spouses, name dropping, or always striving to be in the "right" crowd. Finally, narcissists can simply bully others into respecting them. Narcissists, for example, will respond to ego threats or social rejection with violence. Indeed, this type of behavior may underlie spree killings like that at Columbine.

There are a couple of other points to make surrounding  this description of narcissism. 

1. Narcissism is not "really high" self-esteem. People with high self-esteem are different than narcissists even though both groups have very positive views of themselves. The key difference is what those positive self-views are. Narcissists think they are smarter and better looking than others, but NOT more caring or moral than others. High self-esteem individuals think they are smarter and better looking than others (though not quite to the extent that narcissists do), and they also think that they are more caring and moral than others. Being caring and moral is important to people with high self-esteem, and this encourages them to act in prosocial ways. Narcissists do not have these concerns and thus can more easily be nasty to others.

2. The description of narcissism that we are using refers to a normal (i.e., not clinical) individual difference. This "normal narcissism" describes the behavior of many individuals at certain times in their lives and is not a clinical condition. Clinical narcissism is often termed "narcissistic personality disorder" (NPD)  or "pathological narcissism." This clinical disorder is estimated to affect less than 1% of the population. It may reflect an extreme form of narcissism and it may have some additional features as well. There is little empirical research on the distinction between normal narcissism and NPD.

3. Men are slightly - but only slightly - more narcissistic than women (the correlation between narcissism and gender is roughly .18). Many people think that narcissism is exclusively a male trait. This is not the case.

Lab Members:

Supervising Faculty

    Keith Campbell

Affiliated UGA Faculty

    Adam Goodie

Graduate Students

    Josh Foster

    Ilan Shrira

    Amy Brunell

Undergraduate Research Staff (2002)

    TBA

Some Current and Past Collaborating Researchers

    Roy Baumeister

    Brad Bushman

    Andy Elliot

    Craig Foster

    Eli Finkel

    Glenn Reeder

    Constantine Sedikides

    Jean Twenge

This page was last updated on 08/30/02.