Narcissism and Gender Roles in the Iranian Female Youth

This study examines the relationship between sex roles, narcissism, and adjustment in the Iranian female youth. The number of students who completed the Personal Attribute Questionnaire, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), along with measures of self-esteem and empathy as the markers of adjustment is 147. Overall, the data indicated that masculinity was positively related to whole narcissism scale. This relationship is apparent in both adjusted and maladjusted components of narcissism; that is Authority and Self Sufficiency for adjusted ones and exploitativeness for maladjusted one. Masculinity also positively related to self-esteem and negatively to empathic concern. On the other hand, femininity was negatively related to NPI in whole and Authority, Self Sufficiency (adjusted ones), and entitlement (maladjusted one) subscales. It also had negative relationship with self-esteem and positive relationship with empathic concern. Androgyny appeared the healthiest sex role because of positive relationship with Authority, self-esteem, and perspective taking and also not being related to maladjusted narcissistic components such as exploitativeness and entitlement. Multiple analyses of variance indicated that sex roles were different in subscales of narcissism, self-esteem, empathic concern, and personal distress. These results somehow confirmed previous results about relationships between masculinity and narcissism and also relationship between androgyny and adjusted functioning. However the negative relationship of femininity with self-esteem and adjusted narcissism was in contrast with previous findings in western countries and perhaps the reflection of cultural norms in Iran which was discussed.