Relationships among narcissistic personality, self-esteem, and friendship in adolescence

The purpose of this study was to examine relations among narcissistic personality, self-esteem, and friendship in adolescence. The Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), the Self-Esteem Inventory (SE-I), and a questionnaire regarding friendship were administered to 265 subjects (mean age 19.5 years). A factor analysis of the NPI revealed three significant factors labeled : "a sense of superiority and competence", "a need for attention and praise", and "self-assertion". Only the "self-assertion" and the "sense of superiority and competence" factors showed a significant, positive correlation with the SE-I. As a result of the factor analysis on the friendship questionnaire, friendship was categorized as a two-dimensional space, with intimacy on one axis and the number of friends on the other. The results indicated that adolescents with more friends tended to report high narcissism, while adolescents with more intimate friendship were inclined to report high self-esteem.