Summary: A study reveals that narcissism decreases from childhood to older adulthood, though individual differences remain stable over time. People who are more narcissistic as children tend to stay that way as adults.
The research highlights the impact of narcissism on personal and social relationships. Future studies should explore why narcissism declines with age and examine trends across diverse cultures.
Key Facts:
- Declining Narcissism: Narcissism decreases from childhood to older adulthood.
- Stable Differences: Individual narcissism levels relative to peers remain stable over time.
- Impact: High narcissism affects both individuals and their social circles.
Source: APA
People tend to become less narcissistic as they age from childhood through older adulthood, according to a study published by the American Psychological Association.
However, differences among individuals remain stable over time — people who are more narcissistic than their peers as children tend to remain that way as adults, the study found.
“These findings have important implications given that high levels of narcissism influence people’s lives in many ways — both the lives of the narcissistic individuals themselves and, maybe even more, the lives of their families and friends,” said lead author Ulrich Orth, PhD, of the University of Bern in Switzerland.
The research was published in the journal Psychological Bulletin.
Orth and his colleagues analyzed data from 51 longitudinal studies, all of which measured how participants’ levels of narcissism changed over time. The studies comprised 37,247 participants (52% female and 48% male) ranging in age from 8 to 77. Some of the studies followed participants for decades. Most were conducted in the U.S., Canada and Western Europe, with one in China and one in New Zealand.
The researchers coded whether each study measured one or more of three different types of narcissism: agentic, antagonistic and neurotic. Agentic narcissism includes feelings of grandiosity or superiority and a strong need for admiration; antagonistic narcissism includes arrogance, entitlement, callousness and low empathy; and neurotic narcissism involves emotional dysregulation and hypersensitivity.
Overall, the researchers found that all three types of narcissism declined from childhood through old age, with a small decline for agentic narcissism and a moderate decline for antagonistic and neurotic narcissism.
The researchers also found, however, that people’s narcissism relative to that of their peers did not change significantly over time. In other words, people who were more narcissistic than average as children remained more narcissistic than average as adults.
“This was true even across very long periods of time, which suggests that narcissism is a stable personality trait,” Orth said.
Most of the data analyzed in the study were from the United States and Western Europe, so future research should examine narcissism across a broader range of countries and cultures, Orth said.
Future research should also aim to explore the reasons that narcissism declines with age, according to Orth.
“One theory suggests that the social roles we take on in adulthood, for example as a partner, a parent, an employee and so on, lead to the development of more mature personality characteristics, including lower levels of narcissism,” he said.
About this personality and psychology research news
Author: Lea Winerman
Source: APA
Contact: Lea Winerman – APA
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Closed access.
“Development of Narcissism Across the Life Span: A Meta-Analytic Review of Longitudinal Studies” by Ulrich Orth et al. Psychological Bulletin
Abstract
Development of Narcissism Across the Life Span: A Meta-Analytic Review of Longitudinal Studies
This meta-analytic review investigated the development of narcissism across the life span, by synthesizing the available longitudinal data on mean-level change and rank-order stability.
Three factors of narcissism were examined: agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic narcissism. Analyses were based on data from 51 samples, including 37,247 participants.
As effect size measures, we used the standardized mean change d per year and test–retest correlations that were corrected for attenuation due to measurement error.
The results suggested that narcissism typically decreases from age 8 to 77 years (i.e., the observed age range), with aggregated changes of d = −0.28 for agentic narcissism, d = −0.41 for antagonistic narcissism, and d = −0.55 for neurotic narcissism. Rank-order stability of narcissism was high, with average values of .73 (agentic), .68 (antagonistic), and .60 (neurotic), based on an average time lag of 11.42 years. Rank-order stability did not vary as a function of age.
However, rank-order stability declined as a function of time lag, asymptotically approaching values of .62 (agentic), .52 (antagonistic), and .33 (neurotic) across long time lags. Moderator analyses indicated that the findings on mean-level change and rank-order stability held across gender and birth cohort.
The meta-analytic data set included mostly Western and White/European samples, pointing to the need of conducting more research with non-Western and ethnically diverse samples.
In sum, the findings suggest that agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic narcissism show normative declines across the life span and that individual differences in these factors are moderately (neurotic) to highly (agentic, antagonistic) stable over time.
