Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2006. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references (p.113-125).

Submitted by Silvana Teresinha Dornelles Studzinski (sstudzinski) on 2015-07-08T17:30:21Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Flávia Nedeff Langaro.pdf: 401133 bytes, checksum: 5cd89676d688561c47c41afcc64bc524 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-07-08T17:30:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Flávia Nedeff Langaro.pdf: 401133 bytes, checksum: 5cd89676d688561c47c41afcc64bc524 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Nenhuma / Ao longo dos anos, as características narcísicas vêm aumentando, sugerindo que os jovens de hoje são mais narcisistas que os jovens adultos das gerações anteriores. Fato esse que se deve às mudanças na sociedade contemporânea e à interferência da cultura na personalidade. O narcisismo é um constructo psicanalítico e é responsável por proteger o “eu” e regular a autoestima do sujeito. Entre as várias medidas de narcisismo desenvolvidas, o Inventário de Personalidade Narcísica (NPI) tem sido o instrumento mais utilizado em estudos empíricos, avaliando o narcisismo normal, ou seja, não-defensivo e bem resolvido. Desse modo, o presente estudo buscou identificar as características narcísicas de personalidade em 350 jovens adultos universitários, quanto ao sexo, idade e tipo de curso desses jovens, bem como realizar uma análise inicial das propriedades psicométricas do instrumento NPI. Esse estudo assumiu um delineamento quantitativo, do tipo transversal. A análise dos dados foi realizada através de estatística descritiva e inferencial, seguidas do teste t de Student e Anova para identificar diferenças de médias entre grupos, bem como Análise Fatorial Exploratória e Confirmatória do NPI. Como resultado do estudo, a análise das características psicométricas iniciais do instrumento apontou uma solução fatorial de seis fatores, o que atesta a multidimensionalidade do instrumento e a necessidade de se precisar aspectos hierárquicos das dimensões. Ainda, uma análise mais discriminada aponta que, em relação ao sexo dos participantes, os homens apresentaram índices mais elevados no NPI, quando comparados às mulheres. Já, com relação à idade, não houve diferenças significativas nos escores referentes ao narcisismo. Por último, com relação às áreas de conhecimento, os estudantes universitários dos cursos de Ciências Exatas apresentaram escores de narcisismo mais elevados do que estudantes das aéreas de Ciências Humanas e da Saúde. / Over the years, narcissist characteristics have increased, suggesting that young people today are more narcissistic than the young adults of previous generations. The fact is due to changes in contemporary society and to the interference of culture on personality. Narcissism is a psychoanalytic construct and is responsible for protecting the "I" and adjusts the subject's self-esteem. Among the various measures of narcissism developed, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) has been the instrument most used in empirical studies, evaluating normal narcissism, ie, non-defensive and well resolved. Thus, this study sought to identify the narcissistic personality characteristics in 350 young adult college students, by gender, age and type of college of these young people, as well as perform an initial analysis of the psychometric properties of the NPI. This study took a quantitative design, transversal. Data analysis was performed using descriptive and inferential statistics, followed by the Student t test and ANOVA to identify mean differences between groups, as well as Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the NPI. As a result of the study, analysis of 14 the initial psychometric characteristics of the instrument showed a factor solution of six factors, which underscores the multidimensionality of the instrument and the need to specify aspects of hierarchical dimensions. Still, a more discriminating analysis shows that in relation to sex of participants, men had higher rates in NPI compared to women. As to the age, there weren´t significant differences in scores related to narcissism. Finally, regarding the areas of knowledge, university students of Exact Sciences courses showed higher narcissism scores than students of Human and Health Sciences.

This study examines the relationship between online self-disclosure, grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism, Facebook use and frequency of status updates in existing self-report measures among 381 college students. Positive correlations were found between: vulnerable narcissism and Facebook status updates, and Facebook use and online self-disclosure. Following the equalization of the two different narcissism scales, college students scored higher on grandiose narcissism as opposed to vulnerable narcissism, the opposite to what was hypothesized. No correlations were found between: grandiose narcissism and Facebook status updates; grandiose narcissism and self-disclosure; and vulnerable narcissism and self-disclosure. Additionally, college women did not score higher in self-disclosure than men on Facebook. Through additional testing a correlation between vulnerable narcissism and Facebook use was also found. Results were negatively affected by the established grandiose narcissism scale failing reliability testing, thus, in the future, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) should be used. High religiosity is also known to positively correlate to positive mental health, therefore, in the future using less religiously orientated college students might yield different narcissism level results.