Narcissism, gender, and evolutionary theory: The role of private and public self-absorption

Narcissism manifests differently in men and women, and this may be due to a dysregulated status-seeking evolutionary mechanism. This article describes two studies of relationships between private self-absorption (thinking about oneself), public self-absorption (thinking about how others think about oneself), gender, and narcissism in large samples of U.S. college students. Results of both studies found that, among women, narcissism was associated with both private and public self-absorption, whereas among men, narcissism was associated only with public self-absorption. Additionally, results of both studies found that public self-absorption mediated the relationship between private self-absorption and narcissism and that this relationship was moderated by gender. These results suggest that self-absorption and narcissism share a component of pathological self-focused attention, and that a dysregulated status-seeking mechanism may be involved in narcissism. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.