Defense styles of narcissistic personality types:a canonical correlation

Subject Areas : روان درمانگری

Received: 2015-06-05 Accepted : 2015-06-05 Published : 2008-12-21

Keywords: Narcissism, vulnerable narcissism, grandiose narcissism, defense mechanism, canonical correlation,

Abstract :

Immature defense mechanisms are often implicated in various personality disorders. This study investigated degrees of immaturity and types of defense mechanisms in a range of narcissistic personality disorders. 263 graduate and undergraduate students (156 female, 107 male) completed the Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ, Andrews, Sing & Bond, 1993), Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI, Raskin & Hall, 1979), and Vulnerable Narcissistic Scale (VNS, Pimentel et al., 2004) in order to make distinction between 2 types of covert and overt narcissism. Analysis of findings showed: 1) vulnerable narcissism or covert type of narcissism was positively correlated to immature (such as devaluation) and neurotic defense mechanisms (such as pseudo-altruism), 2) grandiose narcissism or overt type of narcissism was negatively correlated with neurotic defense mechanisms and positively with immature defense mechanisms, 3) distinguishing between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism can prevent diagnostic mistakes. The implications of this distinction in the therapeutic process of such personality disorders are also discussed.