Narcissism through the ages: What happens when narcissists grow older?

Three types of adult narcissism, as assessed with Wink’s (1991) observational rating method, were studied over a period of 25 years, with participants from the Intergenerational Studies of the Institute of Human Development, UC Berkeley. Narcissism was assessed on three occasions, from age 34 to age 59. Hypersensitive narcissism was found to decrease, Autonomous narcissism increased, and Willfulness narcissism did not change with age. At age 34, both Willfulness and Autonomous narcissism were related to agentic personality characteristics, but only Autonomous narcissism was related to the communal personality characteristic of empathy. Change in narcissism between age 34 and age 59 was shown to predict change in personality at age 71. The agentic personality characteristics that had been associated with Willfulness narcissism at age 34 were no longer characteristic of those individuals at age 71. In addition, in contrast to Autonomous narcissism, at age 34 Willfulness and Hypersensitivity were associated with emotional maladjustment, and predicted continuing maladjustment and less favorable life outcomes in later life.

► Studied change in adaptive and maladaptive narcissism, age 34 to age 59. ► Early adaptive and maladaptive narcissism associated with agentic personality traits. ► Only late adaptive narcissism associated with agentic traits. ► Only adaptive narcissism associated with communal traits.