Vulnerable narcissism, more than grandiose narcissism, predicts how people compare themselves with others

Across four studies, the fragile, insecure side of narcissism was the more consistent predictor of social comparison, while results for grandiosity depended on how it was measured.

Narcissism is often characterised by feelings of superiority, which implies comparing oneself with others. Yet little research has directly tested the link, and most of it has focused on grandiose narcissism. Grandiose narcissism is marked by boldness, self-importance and dominance. Vulnerable narcissism is marked by insecurity, status protection and shame. Both share a core of entitlement.

Bruchmann and colleagues at Santa Clara University ran four correlational studies:

• Studies 1 to 3 involved undergraduates at a mid-sized private university in California (176, 217 and 228 participants).

• Study 4 involved 300 US adults recruited through MTurk, with an average age of 38.5.

Studies 1 and 3 used the Pathological Narcissism Inventory, which measures both facets.

Studies 2 and 4 used the Narcissistic Personality Inventory for grandiosity and the

Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale for vulnerability. The outcomes were:

• how often people compare themselves with others in general

• why they compare

• how often they compare upward (with better-off people) or downward (with worse-off people)

• how they feel afterwards

Vulnerable narcissism

Across the four studies, people higher in vulnerable narcissism compared themselves with others more often, both in general and in both directions. In Study 2 they reported comparing to self-enhance, to identify with similar others, and to distance themselves from worse-off others. Somewhat to the authors’ surprise, they also reported comparing to improve their future selves. In Studies 3 and 4, vulnerable narcissism predicted less positive and more negative feeling after upward comparisons, and more negative feeling after downward comparisons.

Grandiose narcissism

Results here depended on the measure. When grandiosity was measured with the Pathological Narcissism Inventory, it predicted more comparison in general (Study 1) and more upward comparison (Study 3). When measured with the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, it did not predict how often people compared (Study 2), and among the comparison motives it predicted only self-enhancement.

Neither measure linked grandiosity to more downward comparison, contrary to earlier studies, and this held even in simple correlations. Grandiosity did predict more positive feeling after both downward and upward comparisons in Studies 3 and 4. The positive feeling after upward comparisons was strongest among people also high in vulnerability, which the authors describe as a buffering pattern.

Measurement matters

With the Pathological Narcissism Inventory, the two facets were strongly correlated. With the other two scales, they were unrelated. Drawing on earlier work suggesting that the inventory’s grandiosity subscale mainly captures entitlement, the authors suggest that entitlement may be more relevant to social comparison than grandiosity itself. They conclude that vulnerable narcissism “should be centrally incorporated into future research on narcissism and self-evaluation”.

Limitations

The studies measured self-reported tendencies rather than reactions to real comparisons as they happen. Participants, especially those higher in grandiosity, may have given socially desirable answers about how they feel. No single study included all three narcissism measures. Studies 1 to 3 used students at an expensive private university who were mostly women, which matters because grandiose narcissism is more prevalent among men. Study 4 used MTurk without an attention check. The studies were not preregistered, and the data are available on the Open Science Framework.

Reference: Bruchmann, K., Kothuri, S., Qualitza, A., Braswell, E., Barrack, E., Dunning, A., & Agredo, V. (2027). Vulnerable narcissism outperforms grandiose narcissism as a predictor of social comparison orientation, motives, and affect. Personality and Individual Differences, 265, Article 114061. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2026.114061