Uncovering the relationship between narcissism and identity formation

Grandiose and vulnerable narcissism are related to various intra and interpersonal consequences. The goal of the current paper is to assess how different facets of narcissism are related to the healthy and pathological identity formation modes. Aiming to address that, we assessed 479 Polish adolescents, aged between 14 and 16 years old (M = 14.90; SD = 0.55). Whereas agentic narcissism was related to healthy identity formation modes, neurotic narcissism was related to pathological ones. Furthermore, antagonistically-oriented facets of narcissism were both related to petrification, while more neurotic expressions of antagonistic narcissism were also related to pathological identity formation modes. Although exploratory in nature, our results extend the knowledge of narcissism consequences on identity formation during adolescence and suggest the need to distinguish these two faces of antagonism in further studies on narcissism.