Abstract

While surprising little research has focused on Narcissist Personality Disorder, a plethora of research has focused on narcissist traits within the nonclinical population and the differences found within this population. Individuals who score high on narcissism are more likely to have more fragile self-esteems. According to attribution theory, students may protect self-esteem by internalizing success while externalizing failure. Participants in this study were college students enrolled at a small, southeastern university. Participants completed a difficult analogy task selected to result in failure for virtually all participants. They were then given the results of their performance and asked to explain why they scored low. Participants also completed a Social Desirability Scale (SDS), the Narcissism Personality Inventory (NPI), and demographics questions. The results confirmed previous research that found narcissist traits decrease as one ages, although only marginally significant. An ANOVA also showed marginally significant results between NPI and SDS, when NPI was broken down into three groups. Attribution theory has important implications within the classroom. It is important for students to understand what habits contributed to success and what habits contributed to failure. Good grades don’t always indicate mastering the material while lower grades don’t always indicate a failure of understanding.

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