Development of narcissism across the life span: A meta-analytic review of longitudinal studies

Orth, U., Krauss, S., Back, M. D.

Abstract

This meta-analytic review investigated the development of narcissism across the life span, by synthesizing the available longitudinal data on mean-level change and rank-order stability. Three factors of narcissism were examined: agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic narcissism. Analyses were based on data from 51 samples, including 37,247 participants. As effect size measures, we used the standardized mean change d per year and test-retest correlations that were corrected for attenuation due to measurement error. The results suggested that narcissism typically decreases from age 8 to 77 years (i.e., the observed age range), with aggregated changes of d = −0.28 for agentic narcissism, d = −0.41 for antagonistic narcissism, and d = −0.55 for neurotic narcissism. Rank-order stability of narcissism was high, with average values of .73 (agentic), .68 (antagonistic), and .60 (neurotic), based on an average time lag of 11.42 years. Rank-order stability did not vary as a function of age. However, rank-order stability declined as a function of time lag, asymptotically approaching values of .62 (agentic), .52 (antagonistic), and .33 (neurotic) across long time lags. Moderator analyses indicated that the findings on mean-level change and rank-order stability held across gender and birth cohort. The meta-analytic dataset included mostly Western and White/European samples, pointing to the need of conducting more research with Non-Western and ethnically diverse samples. In sum, the findings suggest that agentic, antagonistic, and neurotic narcissism show normative declines across the life span and that individual differences in these factors are moderately (neurotic) to highly (agentic, antagonistic) stable over time.