Objective Despite decades of work on narcissism, there remain many active areas of exploration and debate including a clear and consensual description of its underlying components. Understanding narcissism's factor structure is necessary for the precise measurement and investigation of specific psychological and behavioral processes. The aim of the current study was to explore the structure of narcissism by examining it at varying hierarchical levels. Method Participants recruited from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (N = 591) completed 303 narcissism items encompassing 46 narcissism scales and subscales. Criterion variables measuring the five‐factor model, self‐esteem, aggression, and externalizing behavior were also collected. Results A series of factor analyses reveal the factor structure of narcissism at a range of specificities. No more than five meaningful factors (i.e., Grandiosity, Neuroticism, Antagonism, Distrustful Self‐reliance, Attention‐seeking) were identified and the most parsimonious model appears to be a three‐factor structure. Narcissism scales that effectively capture each of the identified factors are identified. Factors diverged in their associations with criterion variables. Conclusions A three‐factor model (i.e., Agentic Extraversion, Narcissistic Neuroticism, Self‐centered Antagonism) seems to be the most parsimonious conceptualization. Larger factor solutions are discussed, but future research will be necessary to determine the value of these increasingly narrow factors.

An alternative diagnostic model of personality disorders (AMPD) was introduced in DSM-5 that diagnoses PDs based on the presence of personality impairment (Criterion A) and pathological personality traits (Criterion B). Research examining Criterion A has been limited to date, due to the lack of a specific measure to assess it; this changed, however, with the recent publication of a self-report assessment of personality dysfunction as defined by Criterion A (Levels of Personality Functioning Scale-Self-report; LPFS-SR; Morey, 2017). The aim of the current study was to test several key propositions regarding the role of Criterion A in the AMPD including the underlying factor structure of the LPFS-SR, the discriminant validity of the hypothesized factors, whether Criterion A distinguishes personality psychopathology from Axis I symptoms, the overlap between Criterion A and B, and the incremental predictive utility of Criterion A and B in the statistical prediction of traditional PD symptom counts. Neither a single factor model nor an a priori four-factor model of dysfunction fit the data well. The LPFS-SR dimensions were highly interrelated and manifested little evidence of discriminant validity. In addition, the impairment dimensions manifested robust correlations with measures of both Axis I and II constructs, challenging the notion that personality dysfunction is unique to PDs. Finally, multivariate regression analyses suggested that the traits account for substantially more unique variance in DSM-5 Section II PDs than does personality impairment. These results provide important information as to the functioning of the two main components of the DSM-5 AMPD and raise questions about whether the model may need revision moving forward. Public Significance StatementThe alternative model of personality disorders included in Section III of the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) includes two primary components: personality dysfunction and maladaptive traits. The current results raise questions about how a new, DSM-5-aligned measure of personality dysfunction operates with regard its factor structure, discriminant validity, ability to differentiate between personality and nonpersonality based forms of psychopathology, and incremental validity in the statistical prediction of traditional DSM personality disorders.

These findings demonstrate the parsimony of using basic personality to study personality pathology and have implications for how vulnerable narcissism might be approached clinically.

The use of crowdsourcing platforms such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) for data collection in the behavioral sciences has increased substantially in the past several years due in large part to (a) the ability to recruit large samples, (b) the inexpensiveness of data collection, (c) the speed of data collection, and (d) evidence that the data collected are, for the most part, of equal or better quality to that collected in undergraduate research pools. In this review, we first evaluate the strengths and potential limitations of this approach to data collection. Second, we examine how MTurk has been used to date in personality disorder (PD) research and compare the characteristics of such research to PD research conducted in other settings. Third, we compare PD trait data from the Section III trait model of the DSM-5 collected via MTurk to data collected using undergraduate and clinical samples with regard to internal consistency, mean-level differences, and factor structure. Overall, we conclude that platforms such as MTurk have much to offer PD researchers, especially for certain kinds of research (e.g., where large samples are required and there is a need for iterative sampling). Whether MTurk itself remains the predominant model of such platforms is unclear, however, and will largely depend on decisions related to cost effectiveness and the development of alternatives that offer even greater flexibility. (PsycINFO Database Record

The current results highlight how specific Agreeableness traits unfold from broader to more specific facets and how these traits are represented in existing measures of this important domain.