Narcissism, shame, masochism, and object relations: An exploratory correlational study.

A correlational study with 701 students examined measures of narcissism, shame, masochism, object relations, and social desirability. Moderate correlations were found for narcissism, shame, object relations, and masochism. Narcissism divided into 2 different styles, a "phallic," grandiose style and a narcissistically vulnerable style. Shame primarily accounted for the differences in these styles, correlating negatively with the grandiose style, positively with the more vulnerable style. The narcissistically vulnerable style correlated more with the core pathology measures; that is, object relations and masochism. Social desirability did not mediate the relationship between grandiose narcissism and shame. Masochism was a better predictor of shame in women than was narcissism whereas there was little difference between masochism and narcissism for predicting shame in men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)