Two shades of narcissism: correlations between narcissistic dimensions, defense mechanisms, mentalization, and social mentalities

Introduction. The discussion on narcissism has characterized much of the psychological literature of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, narcissism remains a quite enigmatic construct. Our understanding of its variants is limited, and there is significant divergence in the definition of the cognitive, emotional, motivational, and behavioral processes that underlie them. These limitations are reflected in the recent critiques of its diagnostical criteria, which do not fully capture the complexity and nuances of this pathology. In recent years, however, Back and colleagues (2013, 2018) have proposed a model that distinguishes two dimensions of narcissism: admiration (characterized by self-enhancing strategies, such as striving for uniqueness and grandiose fantasies, and charmingness) and rivalry (characterized by self-defensive processes such as striving for supremacy, devaluation of others, and aggressiveness), advancing our knowledge of the phenomenon. This study aimed to investigate, in a non-clinical sample, how these different dimensions of narcissism correlate with other aspects of mental functioning, such as defensive mechanisms, mentalization, and social mentalities (i.e., affective, cognitive, and behavioral patterns that underlie basic interpersonal motivational systems) – so as to shed light on the intra- and inter-personal dynamics that characterize narcissistic functioning. Methods. The study was carried out through an online survey. Participants were recruited through snowball sampling – i.e., via email invitation and diffusion through social media. The survey consisted of 1) an ad hoc questionnaire designed to collect socio-demographic data; 2) the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire (NARQ; Back et al., 2013); 3) the Defense Mechanism Rating Scales Self-Report (DMRS-SR-30; Di Giuseppe et al., 2020); 4) the Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (RFQ-8; Fonagy et al., 2016); and 5) the Social Mentalities Scale (SMS; Brasini et al., 2015). A total of 478 participants (309 males and 169 females) between 18 and 30 years old (M=23.6; SD = 2.54) took part in the study. All statistical analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics 27.0. Pearson’s correlation coefficients were calculated to investigate the relationship between narcissism dimensions – evaluated through the NARQ – and defense mechanisms, mentalization, and social mentalities. The criterion for significance was set at p=0.05 for all analyses. Results. Individuals with higher levels of narcissistic traits showed lower levels of overall defensive functioning (ODF); that is, they tended to employ more maladaptive defense mechanisms. Rivalry traits presented greater positive correlations with immature defense mechanisms such as action (acting out, help-rejecting complaining, passive aggression), major image-distorting (projective identification, splitting of self-image, splitting of other’s image), and disavowal (denial, projection, rationalization, autistic fantasy). Minor image-distorting defenses showed positive correlations with all dimensions of narcissism. Concerning mentalization, admiration traits correlated with uncertainty about mental states, suggesting a limited and simplistic engagement in mentalizing activities; instead, rivalry traits correlated with certainty about mental states, suggesting excessive confidence in one’s mentalizing capacity, defined as hyper- or pseudo-mentalizing. Regarding social mentalities, both rivalry and admirations showed significant correlations with agonism. Admiration traits were also positively correlated with prosociality, affiliation, sexuality, and play, and negatively correlated with insecurity, suggesting that this form of narcissism is characterized by the tendency to show pseudo-altruism and pseudo-concern about others to attain social prestige and a sense of belongingness, and at the same time by a tendency to negate feelings of vulnerability, inadequacy, and need for care. On the contrary, rivalry traits correlated positively with insecurity and negatively with prosociality, indicating that individuals with this form of narcissism show a tendency to experience feelings of vulnerability and neediness, as well as self-criticism, self-devaluation, and shame, and therefore a tendency to withdraw from positive social interactions. Conclusion. Our findings hold significant implications for a more thorough understanding of the intra- and inter-personal processes that underlie different forms of narcissism and, consequently, of the different transference and countertransference dynamics that might characterize psychotherapeutic interventions with patients possessing narcissistic traits.