The United States and the “Culture of Narcissism”

Abstract

It has been suggested that the United States has an increasingly narcissistic culture. In the present research, perceptions of national character (PNCs) are used to examine cultural levels of narcissism. In Study 1, archival data show that American PNCs assessed with the five factor model (FFM) closely fit with the profile of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD); archived FFM reports of acquaintances, however, did not fit well. Likewise, in a cross-national comparison, U.S. PNCs of NPD were the highest among examined cultures and U.S. acquaintance reports of NPD were in the top 10. In Study 2, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) was modified to assess PNCs. PNCs reflected high levels of narcissism, whereas self-reports and acquaintance reports reflected more moderate levels. In Study 3, PNCs were examined using the NPI and four personality disorder (PD) scales, including NPD. The difference between self-reports and PNCs was highest for narcissism and NPD compared to other PDs.

Keywords

culture cognition self ethnicity self-identity

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