Narcissism and Anger: An Exploration of Underlying Correlates

Many have posited that narcissistic individuals are sensitive to insults and prone to react to such criticism with anger and hostility. Given that such anger is provoked by criticism from others, it was hypothesized that narcissistic traits which relate to perceived position of authority or superiority and an inflated sense of entitlement would make it easier for someone to perceive a remark as threatening and feel angry. It was hypothesized that these aspects of narcissism, as measured by the subscales of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory by Raskin and Hall would correlate differentially with anger, as measured by the Novaco Anger Scale in a sample of undergraduate men. Results partially confirmed the hypothesis and indicated that scores on Entitlement and Authority were positively associated with anger scores; however, superiority was not. The results imply that specific narcissistic traits such as a perceived position of authority and an inflated sense of entitlement, but not necessarily the global diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, might be important to investigate as correlates of anger.