The Big Five and the interpersonal circumplex are among the most extensively used structural frameworks in personality research. Of the five factors, extraversion and agreeableness are theorized to carry the most interpersonal context, however, all five factors are likely to have important interpersonal implications. In the present study, we evaluated the associations between domains of interpersonal functioning and the Big Five domains and facets using the bootstrapped structural summary method. Results suggested that all Big Five traits showed prototypical and specific interpersonal profiles, with variability observed across lower order facets and domains of interpersonal functioning. Several Big Five traits and facets not overtly related to interpersonal behavior nonetheless showed specific, prototypical associations to interpersonal profiles. Findings suggest that Big Five traits and facets are saturated with interpersonal content and even personality characteristics that are not explicitly interpersonal may still have specific interpersonal implications.
Objective: Narcissism is a complex, hierarchical construct that can be studied at the one, two, or three factor levels with different components within each level having their own unique nomological networks. The manner in which narcissism-both broadly and narrowly construed-is linked to aggression is important to understand given longstanding clinical and empirical observations of a link between the two and the critical implications of aggression.
Methods:The current preregistered meta-analysis (k = 118) took a novel methodological approach in exploring the association between the three levels of narcissism (i.e., global construct level, dual-dimension level, trifurcated level) and three indices of aggression (i.e., general, proactive, reactive).
Results: Results revealed that the global construct of narcissism shows a moderate positive association with different indices of aggression. Vulnerable narcissism associated strongly and positively with reactive aggression and general aggression. At the trifurcated level, interpersonal antagonism associated positively with all indices of aggression, agentic extraversion associated negatively with all indices of aggression, and narcissistic neuroticism associates positively with general and reactive aggression.
Conclusion:The study highlighted the importance of studying narcissism, and potentially other personality profiles, at a finer-grained level to better understand crucial psychological processes associated with the construct of interest.
Narcissism can be conceived hierarchically at three levels: as a global construct (Level 1), as two dimensions (Level 2; grandiosity and vulnerability), and as a trifurcated model with three underlying dimensions: interpersonal antagonism, narcissistic neuroticism, and agentic extraversion (Level 3). The aim of the study was to examine how narcissism dimensions across the three levels differ in their associations with various forms of interpersonal functioning. The authors assessed multiple domains of interpersonal functioning using data collected from 447 MTurk workers, 606 students, and 365 informants. Each narcissism dimension showed unique interpersonal profiles. The profile of interpersonal antagonism largely resembles grandiose and total narcissism in its interpersonal characteristics, narcissistic neuroticism largely resembles vulnerable narcissism, and agentic extraversion does not differ much from the traditional conceptualization of extraversion in its interpersonal qualities (e.g., high communion). Future studies may benefit from studying narcissism and how it relates to other psychological constructs using the trifurcated model.
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