Narcissism scores are higher in individualistic cultures compared with more collectivistic cultures. However, the impact of sociocultural factors on narcissism and self-esteem has not been well described. Germany was formerly divided into two different social systems, each with distinct economic, political and national cultures, and was reunified in 1989/90. Between 1949 and 1989/90, West Germany had an individualistic culture, whereas East Germany had a more collectivistic culture. The German reunification provides an exceptional opportunity to investigate the impact of sociocultural and generational differences on narcissism and self-esteem. In this study, we used an anonymous online survey to assess grandiose narcissism with the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) and the Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI) to assess grandiose and vulnerable aspects of narcissism, and self-esteem with the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE) in 1,025 German individuals. Data were analyzed according to age and place of birth. Our results showed that grandiose narcissism was higher and self-esteem was lower in individuals who grew up in former West Germany compared with former East Germany. Further analyses indicated no significant differences in grandiose narcissism, vulnerable narcissism or self-esteem in individuals that entered school after the German reunification (≤ 5 years of age in 1989). In the middle age cohort (6–18 years of age in 1989), significant differences in vulnerable narcissism, grandiose narcissism and self-esteem were observed. In the oldest age cohort (> 19 years of age in 1989), significant differences were only found in one of the two scales assessing grandiose narcissism (NPI). Our data provides empirical evidence that sociocultural factors are associated with differences in narcissism and self-esteem.

Copyright: © 2018 Vater et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Introduction

Are modern capitalistic cultures nurturing narcissism? Sociocultural changes are frequently proposed to be central mechanisms contributing to increasing narcissism [1]. The majority of empirical studies on the associations between sociocultural changes and narcissism relied on student samples from the US. In the present study, we examined an exceptional case in human history: The division and reunification of Germany. We investigated whether individuals exposed to these two different social systems (with distinct economic, political and national cultures) differed in grandiose and vulnerable narcissism, and self-esteem.

Empirical evidence for the narcissism epidemic Narcissism is increasing in modern Western societies and this has been referred to as a “narcissism epidemic” [1]. The endorsement rate for the statement “I am an important person” has increased from 12% in 1963 to 77–80% in 1992 in adolescents [2]. Recently published books feature more self-centered language compared with earlier publications. For instance, the personal pronouns I and me are used more frequently than we and us [3]. Moreover, the use of narcissistic phrases such as “I am the greatest” has increased between 1960 and 2008 [4]. The rise of narcissism is also reflected in more self-focused song lyrics [5] and a stronger orientation towards fame in TV shows [6]. These observations suggest that narcissistic expressions within individualistic cultures have become more frequent. Scores of self-reported grandiose narcissism, assessed by the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), have increased [7, 8]. Twenge and Campbell reported a significant increase in NPI scores in a cross-temporal meta-analysis of American college students between 1979 and 2006 [9]. NPI scores were 30% higher in the most recent cohort compared with the first cohort. Further analyses between 2002 and 2007 excluded any confounding effects of ethnicity. Taken together with other studies, these findings confirmed that NPI scores are increasing over time in American college students ([10], but also see [13]). Evidence for an increase in narcissism in Western societies has predominantly been provided by the same research group. In these studies, narcissism was consistently measured using the NPI, which has received much criticism [10–12]. Shortcomings of the NPI include a restriction to grandiose aspects of narcissism [13] and problems with validity [14]. Moreover, the NPI is constructed based on the clinical definition of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) in the third edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) produced by the American Psychiatric Association [15]. Nevertheless, Raskin and Terry developed the NPI to assess individual differences in nonclinical populations. The authors have themselves admitted that the NPI fails to capture important psychological and behavioral dimensions that are inherent to pathological narcissism [7]. This means that high NPI scores may represent a non-distressed, self-confident version of grandiose narcissism [13]. However, recent research shows that the NPI provided a strong match to expert ratings of DSM-IV-TR NPD and grandiose narcissism, compared to other narcissism inventories [16, 17]. The Pathological Narcissism Inventory (PNI) has been developed to capture both grandiose and vulnerable aspects of narcissism [13]. PNI scores are thought to be closely related to the clinical diagnosis of NPD, although this has not yet been tested in narcissistic patients. However, recent evidence indicates that the PNI is a useful tool for assessing more pathological aspects of narcissism [18]. Self-esteem, defined as global evaluation of the self [19], is related to narcissism [14, 20–22]. However, recent data provide evidence that narcissism differs from self-esteem in various domains, such as its phenotype, its consequences, its development, and its origins [23]. Self-esteem and narcissism have distinct impacts on outcome measures [21, 24–28]. Narcissism and high self-esteem both include positive self-evaluations, but the entitlement, exploitation, sense of superiority, and negative evaluation of others that are associated with narcissism are not necessarily observed in individuals with high self-esteem [29]. Self-esteem is increasing in the Western world. Middle school students from the United States had markedly higher self-esteem scores in the mid-2000s compared with the late 1980s [30]. Moreover, the self-esteem of college students increased substantially between 1968 and 1994 [31].

Sociocultural environments and narcissism The development of personality traits is closely related to the cultural environment [32–35]. Cultural environments can be classified as individualistic or collectivistic [36, 37]. Individualistic cultures encourage a stronger focus on the self, whereas collectivistic cultures emphasize the importance of social values. Narcissism contains a strong focus on the self, accompanied by a high need for admiration, and grandiose fantasies [38, 39]; therefore members of individualistic cultures may be more narcissistic than individuals from collectivistic cultures [40]. Some studies have provided empirical evidence that individualistic values can lead to narcissism [41]. Individuals from the United States, which has a more individualistic culture, have higher grandiose narcissism scores (NPI) compared with individuals from Asian countries and the Middle East, which have a more collectivistic culture [40]. Likewise, Chinese people have lower self-enhancement scores than individuals from more individualistic Western societies, such as the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Europe [42]. Lower self-esteem has been reported in individuals from East Asia than Western cultures [43]. Similarly, Japanese college students had lower self-esteem scores than Westerners [44–47]. Lower self-esteem in collectivistic societies may be due to the fact that importance is not focused on the self but rather given to the group. Taken together, these findings suggest that individual differences in self-esteem and narcissism may be explained by distinguishable characteristics inherent to different cultures.

The effect of age on narcissism Past research indicates that narcissism decreases with age. Younger individuals have higher narcissism scores [48–50] than older individuals. Wilson and Sibley identified a curvilinear effect of age on NPI scores in the general New Zealand population [51]; 9.4% of individuals in their twenties reported symptoms of NPD, compared with 3.2% of individuals older than 65 years. Hypersensitive narcissism is a variant of pathological narcissism and can be measured by the Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale [52]. Scores using this scale correlated negatively with age [53]. Empirical research provides evidence that entering adulthood during a recession tempers later narcissism, i.e., participants who come of age during tumultuous economic times are less likely to endorse narcissism relative to people who enter adulthood in more prosperous times [54, 55]. Bianchi argues that economic conditions shape later attitudes and values that reflect the prevailing concerns of the time. Narcissistic self-focus may be viable only when people are not reliant on others to satisfy their basic needs during economic prosperous times [56, 57]. In line with this, in Finnish 18 year old man born between 1962 and 1976 a steady increase in personality traits that are associated with higher earnings in later life (e.g., self-confidence, sociability, leadership motivation) has been observed [58]. Self-esteem also changes with age. Latent growth curve analyses have revealed that self-esteem increases with age, peaks at 60 years, and then declines into old age (≥ 70 years) [59–61]. According to Orth and colleagues, individuals establish their sense of self, including their roles, values, and interests during adolescence and young adulthood [59]. Self-esteem increases with age as personality traits mature and social roles begin to manifest. It then decreases during old age because individual traits (e.g., physical strength) and social surroundings (e.g., empty nest syndrome, loss of partner) begin to change. Another study shows that birth cohort has a measurable influence on self-esteem through its interaction with age. Participants born in later years (e.g., 1960) score higher in self-esteem than participants born in earlier years (e.g., 1920) [62]. Moreover, the authors compared participants of the same age in 1986 versus 2002 from the Americans’ Changing Lives (ACL) cohort-sequential study. According to their results, participants of the same age in 2002 scored higher in self-esteem than those in 1986. The authors argue that cultural change in the form of cohort and time period have to be considered when assessing self-esteem in cross-sectional and longitudinal studies.

Rationale of the present study Cultural transformation towards more individualistic values in Western societies has been blamed for the rise in narcissism [34, 63]. However, evidence for an increase in narcissism has largely come from NPI scores of college student cohorts collected between the late 1970s and 2010 [63]. Many researchers have argued that this is insufficient evidence for a narcissism epidemic in Western societies [64, 65]. Moreover, the NPI has been criticized as a measure of narcissism [13, 14]. To address these concerns, we have included evaluation by the PNI in our study, which assesses grandiose and vulnerable narcissism and complements information from the NPI [18]. To date, the influence of culture on narcissism has been investigated using cross-temporal birth cohorts [9, 66] or by comparing samples from different cultural environments [40, 42, 67]. These approaches have methodological limitations. Cross-temporal cohorts use the same self-reporting method and can be affected by sampling biases. Trzesniewski and Donnellan reported that population-based inferences cannot be made from cross-temporal meta-analytic studies that are based on convenience sampling [65]. There are also problems with the use of trans-cultural cohorts, including differences in language use and problems with the translation of self-reporting questionnaires used in these studies. Culture is transmitted through language [68]; therefore it is impossible to rule out mediating variables in language use and word meaning between cohorts from different cultures. To address the methodological restrictions of cross-temporal birth cohorts and cross-cultural comparisons, we used a historically exceptional research setting: reunified Germany. Germany shares the same national culture, but was divided into two independent societies and political systems after World War II. In 1949, the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or East Germany), was founded on the territory of the Russian sector as a communist society with a collectivistic ideology. In the same year, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, or West Germany) was founded as capitalist society on the territory of the Trizone (including the American, British, and French sector). Between 1961 and 1989, interchange between these two German regions was heavily restricted. The Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, marking the beginning of unification. In October 1990, Germany finally became a unified, capitalism-orientated society. The reunification of the socialist GDR and the democratic FRG after more than four decades of separation can be considered a “natural experiment” [69–71]. Until 1945, East and West Germany shared central cultural elements, including language, common norms, values, and habits. After 1945, East Germany gradually became a communist society and its people were increasingly exposed to collectivism. In contrast, West Germany retained its capitalistic system and developed a more individualistic culture [72, 73]. As a result, the German population now consists of a younger generation that grew up under the individualistic system and an older population that were raised either in collectivistic East Germany or individualistic West Germany. Comparing individuals from these two geographical regions may reveal to what degree cultural conditions shape personality across age cohorts.