Narcissism, self-esteem, shame regulation and juvenile delinquency

Abstract

We studied if and how the association between grandiose narcissistic traits and juvenile delinquency is mediated by self-esteem and shame regulation strategies. An ethnic diverse and mixed gender sample of 59 delinquent and 275 non-delinquent adolescents between 13 and 18 years of age participated in a survey study, using the Childhood Narcissism Scale (CNS), the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES) and the Compass of Shame Scale (CoSS). Narcissism showed a weak positive correlation with self-esteem and externalizing shame regulation. Self-esteem correlated strongly and negatively with internalizing shame regulation and Shame Proneness. Logistic regression analysis showed high SES to be negatively associated with delinquency. Also, self-esteem moderated the relation between narcissism and delinquency in that high self-esteem did increase the chance of narcissism leading to delinquency.