The multidimensionality of pathological narcissism from the perspective of social ostracism: A study in a sample of Italian University students

Social ostracism paradigm may represent a challenging task for subjects with pathological narcissism. In order to evaluate the associations between pathological narcissism and social ostracism, 1063 Italian University students were administered the Italian translation of the Five Factor Narcissism Inventory-Short Form (FFNI-SF). Participants who scored in the upper 97.5th percentile of the FFNI-SF Grandiose Narcissism (n = 27) and Vulnerable Narcissism (n = 27) scale score distributions, as well as a group of participants (n = 28) who were randomly selected from students scoring in the 33rd-66th percentile of FFNI-SF total score distribution were administered the Social Media Ostracism Paradigm (SMOP), a laboratory task designed to simulate social exclusion in social network interaction. FFNI-SF Vulnerable Narcissism scale showed almost none significant relationship with participants' experience on the SMOP task. Rather, Grandiose Narcissism seemed to protect participants from threats to self-esteem and to give them a sense of being in control of the situation when they had to face social exclusion. FFNI-SF Antagonism, Agentic Extraversion, and Neuroticism scales yielded meaningful, significant correlations with self-reports of participants' subjective states after the SMOP task. The current study expands our understanding of narcissism by exploring participants' hypersensitivity to social exclusion.