The two faces of Narcissus? An empirical comparison of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory and the Pathological Narcissism Inventory

Areas of convergence and divergence between the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI; Raskin & Terry, 1988) and the Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI; Pincus et al., 2009) were evaluated in a sample of 586 college students. Summary scores for the NPI and PNI were not strongly correlated (r = .22) but correlations between certain subscales of these two inventories were larger (e.g., r = .71 for scales measuring Exploitativeness). Both measures had a similar level of correlation with the Narcissistic Personality Disorder scale from the Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire-4 (Hyler, 1994) (r = .40 and .35, respectively). The NPI and PNI diverged, however, with respect to their associations with Explicit Self-Esteem. Self-esteem was negatively associated with the PNI but positively associated with the NPI (r = −.34 versus r = .26). Collectively, the results highlight the need for precision when discussing the personality characteristics associated with narcissism.