The mediating role of empathy in the relationship between attachment styles and narcissistic personality symptoms in Students of university

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the mediating role of empathy in the relationship between attachment styles and narcissistic personality symptoms in Students at university. The statistical population consisted of 20-40-year-old students of Tabriz University in the academic year 2022-2023. 300 people were selected as a sample using the cluster sampling method. The research tools included Narcissistic Personality Questionnaire-16 (NPI-16) by Ames et al. (2006), Adult Attachment Inventory (AAI) by Simpson (1990), and Basic Empathy Scale (BES) by Albiero et al. (2009). Structural equation analysis was used to analyze the data. The results showed the optimal fit of the research model. The results showed that secure attachment and empathy have a significant direct effect on narcissistic personality respectively with standardized effect sizes of 0.25 (P=0.007) and -0.20 (P=0.02), but the direct effect of secure, avoidant, and ambivalent attachment was not significant on empathy with standard effect sizes of -0.20, -0.29 and -0.002 respectively (P<0.05). Also, avoidant attachment with a standardized effect size of 0.08 showed a significant indirect effect on narcissistic personality symptoms with the mediation of empathy (P=0.05). These results show that empathy, considering the role of avoidant attachment, can explain the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder in Students at university.