Entering adulthood in a recession tempers later narcissism – But only in men

•Replication of Bianchi (2014).•Used five samples from two countries with a total N > 11,000.•Additionally investigated gender differences.•Average unemployment during emerging adulthood only tempers later narcissism in men.•Results were robust against several alternative ways of analyzing our data.

In a recent study, Bianchi (2014) showed that macroeconomic conditions (i.e. average unemployment rate) during the years of emerging adulthood (ages 18–25) are inversely related to adult narcissism. Fletcher (2015) called into question the robustness of the results and Grijalva et al. (2015) presented meta-analytic support for real gender differences in narcissism. Here we report combined results from five studies (N = 11,394) showing that the average unemployment rate during emerging adulthood indeed tempers later narcissism – but only in men.