The associations of adolescent invulnerability and narcissism with problem behaviors

This study examined the correlations between invulnerability, narcissism, self-esteem, delinquency, and aggression in a sample of at-risk adolescents. Participants were 213, 16-18 year-olds (169 male, 44 female). As expected, narcissism and invulnerability were related to delinquency and aggression. However, maladaptive narcissism predicted unique variance in delinquency and relational aggression. A negative effect for self-esteem emerged for predicting delinquency when controlling for narcissism and perceived invulnerability. The distributions of narcissism and invulnerability indicated that these constructs may not, as a rule, be elevated in such youth. Some preliminary implications for the role of these variables in adolescent problem behaviors are presented. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.