Are there such things as “Narcissists” in social psychology? A taxometric analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory

Narcissism is typically viewed as a dimensional construct in social psychology. Direct evidence supporting this position is lacking, however, and recent research suggests that clinical measures of narcissism exhibit categorical properties. It is therefore unclear whether social psychological researchers should conceptualize narcissism as a category or continuum. To help remedy this, the latent structure of narcissism—measured by the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI)—was examined using 3895 participants and three taxometric procedures. Results suggest that NPI scores are distributed dimensionally. There is no apparent shift from “normal” to “narcissist” observed across the NPI continuum. This is consistent with the prevailing view of narcissism in social psychology and suggests that narcissism is structured similar to other aspects of general personality. This also suggests a difference in how narcissism is structured in clinical versus social psychology (134 words).