Edited by: Liat Levontin, Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
Reviewed by: Emanuel Jauk, Technische Universität Dresden, Germany; Marcin Zajenkowski, University of Warsaw, Poland
This article was submitted to Personality and Social Psychology, a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
The objective of the current study was to examine the relations between narcissism and Adler’s community feeling. Based on theoretical considerations, we claim that community feeling can be treated as an opposite pole of narcissism and we expected that: (1) both grandiose and vulnerable narcissism would be negatively related to community feeling and that (2) grandiose and vulnerable narcissism would be positively related to anti-community domination and isolation. A sample of 520 university students (Mage = 21.37, SDage = 4.31) completed the Community Feeling Questionnaire (CFQ), the Narcissistic Admiration and Rivalry Questionnaire (NARQ) and the Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale (HSNS). Structural equation modeling largely confirmed our expectations. These results suggest that narcissism can be understood in terms of a deficit in community feeling. It turned out that community feeling and narcissism are related constructs but they are not reducible to each other.
In the first half of the 20th century, two great analysts, the creator of psychoanalysis – Sigmund Freud and the creator of individual psychology – Alfred Adler, independently described two seemingly related constructs. On the one hand,
Community feeling (or social interest: germ.
Characteristics of high and low community feeling based on
Dominant life motivation | Acting toward the common good (also considering future generations). | Acting toward overcoming other people, being “better than others,” achieving a dominant position. |
Self-esteem | Feeling of self-worth flowing from what one has to offer, adequate self-appraisal (no need to prove one’s own worth). | Inferiority complex (which can manifest as a feeling of superiority) “pushes” one toward success achievement to prove superiority above others. |
Interpersonal attitude | Kind inner attitude to others (even in the case of conflicting interests). | Rivalry attitude – the urge to overcome others is a dominant tendency. Treating others as rivals. |
People perception | Perceiving individuals based on their values as people. Achievements and successes are not a basis to evaluate a person. | People perception dominated by “better-worse” categories (envy toward “better,” disregard for “worse”). |
Emotionality in interpersonal relations | Low hostility level. | Tendency to feel hostility and ascribe hostile tendencies to others. |
Feeling of gratefulness. | Feeling of harm. | |
Low anxiety level. | High anxiety level. | |
High level of basic trust in people and life. | Low-level of basic trust. | |
Experiencing self in relations to other people | Feelings of community, unity, harmony with others. Strong sense of bonds with others. | Feelings of isolation, separation from others, alienation. Weak sense of bonds with others. |
On the basis of Adler’s concept of community feeling and incorporating observations from her psychotherapeutic practice,
These three clusters point to three community orientations and can be characterized in the following way that combines
Community feeling in the post-Adler approach (
In the light of the dominant interpretation of communion and agency, they refer to modes of social cognition or behavioral characteristics of interpersonal functioning (
Communion is characterized as beneficial mainly for others, and agency as favorable mainly for the individual (
A low community feeling is not only associated with lack of motivation for the common good, but is also associated with another dynamic motivational force: the desire to show one’s superiority over others. Thus, the negative pole of community feeling is not only passive (lack of pro-community motivation), but it is also dynamic and active (anti-community motivation: striving to defeat others). In contrast, there is no negative pole in the concept of communion – only a higher or lower level of communion.
Studies show that while a high level of agency is associated with high self-esteem, a high level of communion is not. In a series of 12 studies, on different groups, different nationalities, and using different self-esteem measures, agency proved to be an important predictor of self-esteem in all studies, and communion in none of the studies (
Preliminary studies of the correlation between community feeling (measured by the first version of the CFQ) and agency – communion (measured by Agency and Communion Scales –
To sum up, Adler’s (1938/2011, 2005) considerations and some preliminary research (
In various contexts, the term narcissism refers to the developmental phase, personality traits, and the personality disorder. In the DSM-5 (
Since the concept of narcissism derives from psychoanalytic theories, it is worth looking at how narcissism is formulated using this approach. In addition to primary narcissism, which is a normal phase of child development, Freud discussed pathological secondary narcissism, in which libido due to injury is focused mainly on oneself instead of referring to external objects. Secondary narcissism is the nucleus of the psychotic structure and it can also lead to depression. According to
Traditionally, the concept of narcissism referred to the psychopathology of personality. In newer psychological literature, however, the more popular approach is to treat narcissism as a subclinical phenomenon that can appear in two forms: grandiose and vulnerable (
In initial studies, the two forms of narcissism were found to be unrelated (
Vulnerable narcissism and the admiration seeking strategy of grandiose narcissism are more removed from each other while the rivalry strategy of grandiose narcissism is located between them and is the closest to self-importance. This was confirmed by
The distinction between grandiose and vulnerable narcissism is also considered by the recently developed Narcissism Spectrum Model (
A somewhat similar distinction is found in the trifurcated model (
The integration of various approaches to narcissism was made using the Circumplex of Personality Metatraits (
The theoretical considerations and preliminary research on community feeling led to a distinction between two forms of anti-community orientation: anti-community domination and anti-community isolation. As we presented above, analysis of their theoretical content suggests that they correspond to two facets of narcissism: grandiose and vulnerable. It is worth noting that both community feeling and narcissism are constructs of psychoanalytical origin, proposed by the founder of the psychoanalytical paradigm (Freud and Adler). On the other hand, both community feeling and narcissism are conceptualized and operationalized in current psychology, which enables the relations between these constructs to be tested in the individual differences framework. The aim of our study was to use this opportunity and empirically verify the theoretically predicted relations between two psychoanalytical classic concepts: community feeling and narcissism.
Specifically, based on the considerations presented above we hypothesized that:
Both types of anti-community orientation are negatively related to the pro-community orientation.
Narcissistic rivalry as a facet of grandiose narcissism is positively related to narcissistic admiration (another facet of grandiose narcissism) and vulnerable narcissism.
All aspects of narcissism are negatively related to community feeling (pro-community orientation).
Grandiose narcissism is positively related to anti-community domination (and the relationships will be stronger for narcissistic rivalry than narcissistic admiration) while vulnerable narcissism is positively related to anti-community isolation.
All hypotheses will be tested together in a model presented in
Model of relations between community feeling and narcissism. Red line, expected negative relations; black, expected positive relations; dotted lines, no specific expectations.
The sample consisted of 520 participants, including 386 women and 134 men with ages ranging from 18 to 62 (M = 21.37; SD = 4.31). The questionnaires were distributed to 562 people, but 42 people did not fill in the questionnaires completely and therefore were dropped from the analyses. Participants were Polish university students of the following disciplines: special education, social work, English, German, and French philology, psychology, history, speech therapy, cultural management, national security, management, administration, IT, mechanics and machine construction, and power engineering.
The study was conducted in 2018 in Polish universities. After consultation with the lecturers, at the beginning of the classes, students were given questionnaires (in paper form) with a request to complete them. Participation in the study was voluntary and involved no incentives for the participants. The questionnaires were filled in anonymously. Students filled them out immediately, during the classes, and after filling them in, the sheets were collected.
We used a revised version of the CFQ (
The NARQ measures grandiose narcissism, understood as a personality trait, and consists of 18 items measured on a 6-point Likert scale (1 =
The HSNS is a brief, unidimensional measure of vulnerable narcissism (
Descriptive statistics and results of r-Pearson correlation analyses between community feeling and narcissism.
Pro-community orientation (1) | 0.89 | 4.01 | 0.70 | 1 | |||||
Anti-community domination (2) | 0.90 | 2.49 | 0.82 | −0.41** | 1 | ||||
Anti-community isolation (3) | 0.92 | 3.19 | 0.99 | −0.17** | 0.22** | 1 | |||
Grandiose narcissism | |||||||||
Narcissistic admiration (4) | 0.85 | 3.24 | 0.91 | −0.03 | 0.47** | −0.32** | 1 | ||
Narcissistic rivalry (5) | 0.86 | 2.41 | 0.93 | −0.44** | 0.68** | 0.24** | 0.38** | 1 | |
Vulnerable narcissism (6) | 0.77 | 3.27 | 0.77 | −0.36** | 0.47** | 0.55** | 0.09* | 0.44** | 1 |
The positive pole of community feeling (pro-community orientation) was negatively correlated both with grandiose narcissism – rivalry, and with vulnerable narcissism. We did not find a significant relationship between community feeling and the admiration strategy of grandiose narcissism. Anti-community domination correlated positively with all forms of narcissism, but, consistent with our expectations, it correlated most strongly with the rivalry strategy of grandiose narcissism. Anti-community isolation, as predicted, correlated most strongly and positively with vulnerable narcissism, as well as negatively with grandiose admiration.
Regarding gender differences: men have a higher level of anti-community domination and of grandiose narcissism (both: rivalry and admiration) than women. There are no other significant gender differences. The results are presented in
Differences between men and women – results of Student
Pro-community orientation | 3.94 | 0.69 | 4.03 | 0.71 | –1.31 |
Anti-community domination | 2.87 | 0.82 | 2.38 | 0.79 | 6.07** |
Anti-community isolation | 3.24 | 0.96 | 3.18 | 1.01 | 0.59 |
Grandiose narcissism | |||||
Narcissistic admiration | 3.38 | 1.04 | 3.14 | 0.92 | 2.45* |
Narcissistic rivalry | 2.83 | 1.02 | 2.29 | 0.88 | 5.88** |
Vulnerable narcissism | 3.29 | 0.80 | 3.26 | 0.76 | 0.38 |
The theoretical model presented in
The model presented in
CFA model of relations between community feeling and narcissism. All presented coefficients are significant (
In the current article, we argue that community feeling derived from the tradition of Adler is systematically related to narcissism originated in the tradition of Freud. Narcissism has been heavily studied in social, personality, and clinical psychology for decades. Taking into account Adler’s conceptualization of community feeling, one can claim that narcissism can be treated as a deficit in community feeling. Thus, community feeling and narcissism can be treated as two opposing phenomena.
The results of the current study confirmed the hypothesis that anti-community orientations are strongly related to narcissism. Especially anti-community domination is positively related to grandiose narcissism (as measured by NARQ) and anti-community isolation is positively related to vulnerable narcissism (as measured by HSNS).
The relations between community feeling and both aspects of narcissism on the basis of the Spectrum Narcissism Model (
Community feeling as an opposite phenomenon to narcissism.
Treating community feeling (pro-community orientation) and narcissism as two opposite psychological phenomena does not mean they are identical or reducible to each other. Describing some constructs as opposing is not rare in psychology. It is especially useful in circular models. An example of that is Schwartz’s (
The above conclusions, however, mainly concern maladaptive forms of narcissism. Our research has not confirmed the hypothesis of a negative relationship between pro-community orientation and one form of grandiose narcissism: narcissistic admiration. It can be explained by the fact that a narcissistic admiration strategy can have an adaptive function (
The strength of the article lies in it taking a step toward the integration of two psychological concepts originally derived from two different classical psychoanalytical traditions. At the same time, this has been done by conducting research with tools enabling their integration into contemporary personality concepts. It is worth noting that the concept of narcissism is derived from the works of
The results after some replications can also have a practical application. In particular, showing the connection between maladaptive forms of narcissism and community feeling can be used in the psychotherapy of people with narcissistic personality disorder. According to Adler’s assumption, community feeling, although it is a relatively stable disposition, is formed in the first years of life and can also be potentially developed in later life periods. Therefore, one can expect that supporting the development of community feeling will help in narcissistic personality disorder psychotherapy.
Our study is not free of limitations. First, there are some measurement limitations. The validity of the HSNS (as a measurement of vulnerable narcissism) has been discussed and is considered controversial (
Second, there are some construct limitations that need to be taken into account in future research. Community feeling measured with the CFQ has to be distinguished in empirical results from related constructs like communion (from the communion-agency concept;
The data are available at the link
Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent for participation was not required for this study in accordance with the national legislation and the institutional requirements.
AK-W was the author of the first version of the operationalization of the Adlerian community feeling (developed the Community Feeling Questionnaire) and collected the data. AK-W and WS developed the revised version of the Community Feeling Questionnaire. AK-W, WS, and JC designed the study. WS and JC ran the statistical analyses. AK-W in collaboration with WS wrote the manuscript. JC commented on the draft of the manuscript and helped to improve it to the published version. All authors read and approved the submitted version.
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Matrix of rotating factors from exploratory factor analysis (principal axis factoring with varimax rotation) of the Community Feeling Questionnaire – Revised.
44 | 0.796 | |||
18 | 0.794 | |||
22 | 0.766 | |||
25 | 0.756 | |||
2 | 0.732 | |||
36 | 0.723 | |||
39 | 0.718 | |||
12 | 0.662 | |||
33 | 0.618 | |||
4 | 0.617 | |||
37 | 0.599 | |||
6 | 0.588 | |||
40 | 0.566 | |||
46 | 0.534 | |||
17 | 0.693 | |||
28 | 0.686 | |||
15 | 0.630 | |||
8 | 0.620 | |||
9 | 0.620 | |||
30 | 0.614 | |||
5 | 0.587 | |||
31 | 0.564 | |||
3 | 0.510 | |||
1 | 0.505 | |||
13 | 0.489 | |||
11 | 0.485 | |||
34 | 0.483 | |||
42 | 0.478 | |||
26 | 0.457 | |||
16 | 0.437 | |||
23 | 0.436 | |||
20 | 0.407 | |||
38 | 0.729 | |||
43 | 0.725 | |||
27 | 0.717 | |||
24 | 0.697 | |||
41 | 0.688 | |||
14 | 0.598 | |||
21 | 0.596 | |||
10 | 0.586 | |||
19 | 0.558 | |||
29 | 0.539 | |||
45 | 0.536 | |||
7 | 0.509 | |||
32 | 0.440 | |||
35 | 0.354 |