Identifying criteria for narcissistic personality disorder

Abstract

The authors report an exploratory effort to identify useful criteria for narcissistic personality disorder. They used the semistructured Diagnostic Interview for Narcissism to assess 24 narcissistic patients and 58 others on 33 characteristics imputed to pathological narcissism. The following characteristics were significantly more common among the patients with narcissistic personality disorder: a sense of superiority, a sense of uniqueness, exaggeration of talents, boastful and pretentious behavior, grandiose fantasies, self-centered and self-referential behavior, need for attention and admiration, arrogant and haughty behavior, and high achievement. The results provide an empirical basis for developing an improved set of criteria for narcissistic personality disorder.