Narcissism, affect, and gender: An empirical examination of Kernberg's and Kohut's theories of narcissism.

The activation of narcissistically affirming and disaffirming early memories were used to assess Kernberg's and Kohut's propositions regarding the roles of hostile, depressive, and positive affect in narcissistic character structures. After completing the Narcissistic Personality Inventory participants wrote either an early memory of pride, an early memory of shame, an unspecified memory, or no memory before completing the Projective Affect Scale and Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist. ANOVAs were conducted on participants ratings of hostile, depressive, and positive affect. The results indicated that for high relative to low narcissists, prideful and nonspecific memories resulted in less hostility, less pride, and more positive affect. Shameful memories resulted in higher projected hostility for high narcissists. Shame was negatively related to narcissism for males and positively related for females. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)