Narcissistic and Psychopathic Traits and Relational Abilities in a Forensic Sample

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Narcissistic and Psychopathic Traits and Relational Abilities in a Forensic Sample Narcissistic and Psychopathic traits and relational abilities in a Forensic Sample Maarten Maul Tilburg University Name: Maarten Maul Student number: 218500 Supervisor: Carlo Garofalo Second supervisor: Jenny Houtepen Number of words: 4981 Date: August 22th, 2016 Narcissism and psychopathy are related constructs that show a number of features, such as derogating others and aggressiveness (DSM-IV, 1994; Hare, 1991) that might lead to problems in relational functioning. This study investigated the relationship between narcissistic and psychopathic traits and relational functioning in a forensic sample (n=138). Self-report questionnaires with different subscales for covert and overt narcissism and primary and secondary psychopathy were used. Relational functioning was measured using scales for social concordance and relational capacities. The results of this study indicated that covert narcissism and secondary psychopathy in particular report difficulties in relational functioning. Limitations of this study and aims for future research are discussed. In the quest of understanding narcissism, a lot of research focuses on self-esteem in narcissistic personalities (e.g. Horvath & Morf, 2010; Rose, 2001). These articles show that people with narcissism crave for the attention and affirmation of others to maintain their high self-esteem. Unsurprisingly, the concepts of narcissism and self-esteem are mostly moderately to highly correlated (Brown & Zeigler-Hill, 2004). Narcissistic personalities not only have high self-esteem. According to the definition of narcissism in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. [DSM-IV], American Psychiatric Association, 1994), they also have a sense of entitlement which makes them exploit others and lack empathy for them. Furthermore, they derogate others and have an external attribution for failure. Paulhus (1998) found that as a result of this behaviour, narcissistic people are disliked by their peers, even if they make a good first impression. In this study, participants met seven times for 20 minutes. After meetings one and seven, group members rated their perceptions of the other group members. Participants with high narcissism and self-deceptive enhancement scores were first seen as agreeable, well-adjusted and competent. However, after the last meeting, they were rated negatively by their peers and gave self-evaluations that were discrepant with peer evaluations. One can say that narcissists are full of paradoxes. They want to connect with other people because they crave for the affirmation of others. At the same time, they are unable to make that interpersonal connection because of their negative behaviour as described above. 2 They seem self-centred and confident, yet they are very sensitive to how others see them (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). Studies on narcissism and friendships show that narcissists tend to be goal-oriented and strategic if it comes to friendship selection (Foster, Misra & Reidy, 2009; Jonason & Schmitt, 2012). Narcissism was also found to be positively correlated to relational aggression in a peer context in adolescents (Golmaryami & Barry, 2010; Ojanen, Findley & Fuller, 2012). In another study, Campbell and Foster (2002) found that narcissism was negatively correlated to commitment in romantic relationships. Finally, Keller et al. (2014) found that narcissism was related to the use of aggression in dyadic relationships. These findings highlight the negative behaviour narcissistic people can display in relationships and bring up the question if they are able to form and maintain positive relationships in which they have a positive attitude towards others. In studying this question, it is important to make a distinction between two types of narcissists. Research suggests that these two types are covert and overt narcissism (Gabbard, 1989; Wink, 1991; Rose, 2002, Dickinson & Pincus, 2003). Overt narcissism is described as the grandiose subtype that has a sense of entitlement and demands the attention of others. Covert narcissists tend to be more vulnerable because they are hypersensitive to other’s evaluations (Gabbard, 1989). They are also relatively unhappy and have lower self-esteem than overt narcissists (Rose, 2001). The question in this study is whether there is a difference in these subtypes in relational functioning. Dickinson and Pincus (2003) found that the, what they call vulnerable narcissistic subtype, reports higher interpersonal distress and interpersonal problems than the grandiose subtype. Further research on this issue is required, and one of the aims of the current study is to compare these two subtypes of narcissism to see whether there is a difference in the relation to relational functioning. A concept that is somewhat similar to narcissism is psychopathy. Both clinical constructs are often observed in forensic populations, and as well as with narcissism, people 3 with psychopathic traits, such as a lack of remorse, a grandiose estimation of self, impulsivity and a lack of empathy (Hare, 1991) seem to have problems forming and maintaining positive relationships with the people around them. The relation between narcissism and psychopathy is often studied. Some researchers even suggest that psychopathy and narcissism are different names for the same construct (Gustafson & Ritzer, 1995), or that they have at least some features in common, such as aggressiveness and self-promotion (Hart & Hare 1998). Indeed, recent research seems to suggest that they are distinct, although overlapping constructs (Fossati, Pincus, Borroni, Munteanu & Muffei, 2014; Falkenbach, Howe & Falki, 2013). In their study, Paulhus and Williams (2002) stated that the so called Dark Triad of personality traits, which are narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism, are three separate constructs. They only shared one common Big Five correlate, which is disagreeableness. According to Kernberg (1989), a major difference between the two constructs is that psychopaths have an incapacity for concern for others. In regard to psychopathy and relational functioning, Schmeelk, Sylvers and Lilienfeld (2008) found that relational aggression correlated significantly with features of psychopathy. Furthermore, among young adults, psychopathic traits influenced relational aggression in peer and romantic relationships (Czar, Dahlen, Bullock & Nicholson, 2011). The studies mentioned above were conducted with community samples. In a forensic population, Van den Berg and Oei (2009) stated that it is notoriously difficult for severe psychopathic patients to commit to the patient-therapist relationship. This difficulty is probably caused by certain personality traits, such as a lack of ability to love others, which make it more difficult for psychopathic persons to engage in a reciprocal relationship (Cleckley, 1982). As with narcissism, theorists made a distinction between two dimensions of psychopathy (Lykken, 1995; Newman, MacCoon, Vaughn & Sadeh, 2005), namely primary and secondary psychopathy. These are the two factors on which Hare (1991) based his 4 psychopathy checklist and Levenson (1995) based his self-report psychopathy scale. The major difference between the two dimensions is that secondary psychopaths experience more fear and anxiety than the typical, classic psychopath, which is referred to as primary psychopathy. However, there is not much research to give insight in relational functioning in the two dimensions of psychopathy. As stated by Kernberg (1989), psychopaths have an incapacity for concern of others. Therefore, one would expect more problems in relational functioning, but it is still unclear if these problems arise in both primary and secondary psychopaths. The current study focuses on relationship abilities in narcissism and psychopathy in a forensic sample. A self-report questionnaire, the Severity Indices for Personality Problems (SIPP-SF; Andrea et al., 2007) was used to measure relational abilities. This concept is divided into two constructs, social concordance and relational capacities. Social concordance is the ability to inhibit aggressive responses towards someone else and the ability to cooperate with someone. In the SIPP-SF, by relational capacities the ability to care for someone else and to accept that someone cares for you is meant (Andrea et al., 2007). Together, these two concepts give insight in the ability to form and maintain positive interpersonal relationships. As mentioned above, plenty of research has been conducted to the relation between narcissism and romantic or friendly relationships. The current study however, focusses on more general relational abilities by using the SIPP-SF. The aim of the current study is to give more insight in relational functioning in people with narcissistic and psychopathic traits. The research question of this study is therefore: What is the relationship between narcissistic and psychopathic traits and relationship abilities? In this study, the different subtypes of narcissism and psychopathy are studied in a way that their relationship with relational capacities and social concordance is tested, correcting for the overlapping relationships with other independent variables. This is important because with 5 this way of analysing only the unique relationships between independent and dependent variables are tested and therefore confusion between overlapping constructs is avoided. In addition, the forensic group of participants is compared to a control group, a community sample, in order to check if there
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