Narcissism has been traditionally thought of as an agentic trait, meaning that narcissists fulfill their needs for grandiosity, entitlement, and power through agentic means such as competence and uniqueness. A recent article appearing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology examined whether there is another type of narcissism, communal narcissism. Communal narcissists were postulated to fulfill their needs for self-aggrandizement through communal means such as warmth and altruism. A new measure of agentic and communal narcissism was developed and validated across five studies. Results showed that agentic narcissists claim to be better than average on agentic characteristics and have better than average knowledge of agentic topics. Communal narcissists showed the opposite pattern, claiming to be better than average on communal characteristics and having better than average knowledge of communal topics.

Gebauer, J. E., Sedikides, C., Verplanken, B., & Maio, G. R. (2012). Communal narcissism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(5), 854-878. doi: 10.1037/a0029629

The Personality Project

Are there two kinds of narcissists?