Degree

BS (Social Sciences & Liberal Arts)

Faculty / School

School of Economics and Social Sciences (SESS)

Department

Department of Social Sciences & Liberal Arts

Date of Award

Spring 2024

Date of Submission

2024-08-04

Advisor

Dr. Ayesha Zia, Assistant Professor, Department of Social Sciences

Committee

Ms. Maria Haqqani, Lecturer, Department of Social Sciences

Project Type

SSLA Culminating Experience

Access Type

Restricted Access

Keywords

vulnerable narcissism, grandiose narcissism, upward academic social comparison, downward academic social comparison, gender

Abstract

Individuals possessing narcissistic traits often evaluate themselves based on how well they compare against others. This study explored the relationship between two dimensions of narcissistic traits and two types of academic social comparisons, specifically the association of vulnerable narcissism with upward academic social comparison and grandiose narcissism with downward academic social comparison. It also examined gender differences among these four key variables. The research used three self-report measures including The Academic Social Comparison Scale, Narcissistic Personality Inventory 13, and The Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale to gather data from 400 undergraduate students (227 females and 173 males) belonging to 14 universities across Pakistan. The data was analyzed using SPSS Version 23. The results indicated a significant moderate positive relationship between both sets of variables, with vulnerable narcissism causing a 26% variance in upward academic comparison and grandiose narcissism causing a 14.2% variance in downward academic comparison. Additionally, significant gender differences were found for grandiose narcissism (t (398) = 2.68, p = 0.008) and downward academic social comparison (t (398) = 3.77, p = 0.000) but not for vulnerable narcissism (t (398) = 0.51, p = 0.612) and upward academic social comparison (t (398) = -1.81, p = 0.070). These results lend support to the integration of narcissism spectrum model and social comparison theory and suggest that comparison processes play an imperative role in maintaining narcissists’ feelings of entitlement and superiority.

Pages

93

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