Continuities and Discontinuities Between Psychopathy and Narcissism Among Male Offenders

Abstract

Introduction

A heated and longstanding debate exists as to whether psychopathy and narcissism represent two distinct, albeit overlapping, constructs, or two different labels for the same concept. However, relatively scant attention has been dedicated to this issue in offender populations, which are likely to present elevated levels of both psychopathy and narcissism. Furthermore, the picture is complicated by the multidimensional nature of both constructs.

Objective

We sought to explore the associations among psychopathy facets and pathological narcissism dimensions, comparing an offender sample with community participants.

Aims

To highlight similarities and differences in clinically relevant and sub-clinical levels of psychopathy and narcissism dimensions, as well as in pattern of associations between them.

Methods

A sample of male offenders incarcerated in Italian jails, and a sample of community-dwelling men, were administered the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (SRP-4; Paulhus et al., 2015) and the Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI; Pincus et al., 2009).

Results

As expected, levels of both narcissism and psychopathy were significantly higher in the offender sample. Narcissism and psychopathy were only partly related, with correlations ranging from low to moderate in size, and differential pattern of associations between selected dimensions emerged consistently with theoretical models and in line with prior studies.

Conclusions

Psychopathy and narcissism are two separate syndromes, which share similar aspects but also present distinct features and this is likely to explain their partial overlap. Future studies should take a closer look at how facets of psychopathy and narcissism relate across different samples (e.g., also examining female offender samples).

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.