634 vI. SELF‑ AND S OCIAL P ROCESSES
between narcissism and life events. In terms 
of selection effects, individuals high in en -
titlement at age 18 tended to report more 
negative life events and lower well-being in 
adulthood. Individuals higher in leadership 
tended to have more supervisory jobs. Van -
ity had a mixed profile of positive and nega -
tive selection effects: Vanity at age 18 was 
associated with shorter and more unstable 
close relationships with romantic partners 
in adulthood but better self-  reported health. 
In terms of socialization effects, supervisory 
positions were associated with compara -
tively smaller declines in leadership, whereas 
instability in relationships and self-  reported 
health were associated with smaller declines 
in vanity. Altogether, these results suggest 
that experiences in work and interpersonal 
relationships are associated with the devel -
opment of some facets of narcissism such 
as vanity and leadership in adulthood. This 
was one of the first studies of its kind, and 
more work is needed on this topic. We now 
turn to a discussion of some important other 
future directions.
Future Directions: Resolving Controversies 
over Pathological versus Normal 
Narcissism and Shifting 
to Within -Person  Dynamics
As we have highlighted in various places 
in this chapter, the study of narcissism is a 
somewhat controversial area of personal -
ity psychology. Below, we review two cur -
rent controversies. We believe that resolving 
these controversies will help to integrate per -
sonality research on narcissism with NPD 
research in psychiatry and clinical psychol -
ogy.
1. Are there normal versus pathological 
expressions of narcissism?  Pincus and Lu -
kowitsky (2010) noted that narcissism often 
involves both pathological and normal ex -
pressions in classical theoretical writings. 
For example, Freud (1914/1955) used the 
idea of primary narcissism to refer to libidi -
nal drives toward self-  preservation and sec -
ondary narcissism to refer to the process of 
withdrawing from objects outside of the self 
toward internal objects. Both primary and 
secondary narcissism reflect processes evi -dent in normal individuals. Disruptions in 
processes related to secondary narcissism, 
however, were believed to result in megalo -
mania. Thus, in foundational writings about 
narcissism, there are ambiguities related to 
narcissism being implicated as part of typi -
cal developmental processes (e.g., the chan -
neling of libidinal drives), as well as a condi -
tion related to pathological character traits 
(e.g., megalomania).
An especially controversial passage in Pin -
cus and Lukowitsky (2010) raises the pos -
sibility that normal and pathological aspects 
of narcissism might be distinct constructs 
(see Miller et al., 2017, pp. 299–2300). Pin -
cus and Lukowitsky (2010) noted that such 
distinctions “remain unclear” (p. 426) but 
seemed to favor the idea that normal and 
pathological narcissism are “distinct individ -
ual differences” (p. 425). Rather than using 
the terms normal  and pathological  to refer 
to different individual differences, we prefer 
to focus on the dimensions highlighted in 
the NSM. We suspect that both extremely 
high and low levels of entitlement, grandios -
ity, and vulnerability can be pathological in 
the sense of creating significant intra- and 
interpersonal distress. Moreover, we worry 
that researchers fail to consider whether 
there are downsides to especially low levels 
of these traits when discussing the social ills 
associated with narcissism. For example, a 
person who lacks any sense of entitlement at 
all might be easily exploited by others and 
become especially dependent on others. Sim -
ilarly, a person who is extremely low in the 
personality elements related to grandiosity 
might not have enough agency to effectively 
engage with the social world. In short, we 
think it makes sense to use the term patho -
logical  to refer to outcomes associated with 
particular levels of the traits associated with 
the NSM rather than as a blanket term for 
distinct individual differences. Likewise, in 
the spirit of making distinctions, we believe 
that there is value in clearly differentiating 
constructs associated with narcissism from 
those related to self-  esteem (e.g., Donnel -
lan, Trzesniewski, & Robins, 2011; Tracy, 
Cheng, Robins, & Trzesniewski, 2009).
2. How strongly does theorizing about 
between-  person individual differences cap -
ture the day-to-day within-  person dynamics 