Common and discriminant features of vulnerable and grandiose narcissism from the perspective of self-conscious emotions and anger

Despite its rich theoretical and empirical background, narcissism has remained as a complex construct to define. In the literature, it was mainly depicted in two forms, namely grandiose and vulnerable narcissism (Wink, 1991). Studies mostly indicated that these two constructs diverged in many aspects (Miller et al., 2011). However, factors resulting in these two images of narcissism has not been not well defined. Thus, this study aimed to understand vulnerable and grandiose narcissism from the perspective of self-conscious emotions and anger. The results of the regression analyses, conducted with 559 adult participants revealed that after controlling for the variance accounted for by age and gender; both vulnerable and grandiose narcissism were positively associated with trait anger and externalized anger; and though pride was the third common feature while grandiose narcissism revealed a positive association with pride, vulnerable narcissism had a negative association with this self-conscious emotion. Other than these features, vulnerable narcissism was positively associated with shame and internalized anger, whereas grandiose narcissism revealed insignificant associations with these emotions. The findings revealed some distinguishing patterns as well as common grounds between two subtypes of narcissistic character styles. Clinical implications, suggestions for future studies, and limitations were discussed in the light of the current literature