The Associations of Adolescent Invulnerability and Narcissism With Problem Behaviors

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-1-2009

Department

Psychology

Abstract

This study examined the correlations between invulnerability, narcissism, self-esteem, delinquency, and aggression in a sample of at-risk adolescents. Participants were 213, 16-18 year-olds (169 male, 44 female). As expected, narcissism and invulnerability were related to delinquency and aggression. However, maladaptive narcissism predicted unique variance in delinquency and relational aggression. A negative effect for self-esteem emerged for predicting delinquency when controlling for narcissism and perceived invulnerability. The distributions of narcissism and invulnerability indicated that these constructs may not, as a rule, be elevated in such youth. Some preliminary implications for the role of these variables in adolescent problem behaviors are presented. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Publication Title

Personality and Individual Differences

Volume

47

Issue

6

First Page

577

Last Page

582

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