You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The numerous controversies over the definition of the narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) bring forth inconsistencies in its assessment. Recent work supports the idea that affect regulation is a defining issue of NPD. Nevertheless, research on the subject is scarce; affect regulation is probably underestimated in NPD's current diagnostic procedures. Moreover, the degree as to which these affects predominate their relational narratives has not been evaluated. A better awareness of NPD's characteristic means of representing and regulating affect should significantly improve its diagnosis. The present study is an exploratory analysis of the relationship between affect representation and narcissistic features. Affect representation was assessed with the Grille de l'Élaboration Verbale de l'Affect (GEVA), an observer-rated measure of levels of elaboration of verbalized affect, and the Measure of Affect Content (MAC), which identifies the content of the verbalized affect (e.g., anger). NPD features were measured by the number of Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II questionnaire items endorsed by the participants. Results show that higher levels of NPD traits are associated with a higher frequency of shame (r = .26), helplessness (—.25), admiration of self (.23), anger turned against the self (.21), and with lower levels of verbal elaboration of sadness (—.22; all correlations significant at p < .10). Results are mostly concordant with the literature, and give support to the idea that a focus on affective experience should enrich our understanding of narcissistic personality characteristics.