HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Psychopathology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1620201
This article is part of the Research TopicEmotional impulsivity and emotion regulation deficits as important factors in clinically challenging behaviors in psychiatric disorders, volume IIView all articles
The Envy-Contempt Spiral: Affective Self-Regulation in Grandiose Narcissism
Provisionally accepted- Sigmund Freud University Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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In classic psychoanalytic theory, narcissism and envy have been theorized to be inseparably interwoven. Nevertheless, empirical findings have not yet been able to substantiate this relationship. Conversely, most studies showed that grandiose facets of narcissism curbed feelings of envy, suggesting an envy-protection inherent to grandiose narcissism. Consistent with these findings, contemporary psychodynamic accounts, specifically object-relations theory, conceptualize grandiose narcissism as a defensive structure against envy via the elicitation of contempt. In the present paper, we translate this theory to contemporary personality psychology by drawing on Affective Neuroscience and socio-functional approaches of emotion. We propose that envy and contempt interact in a self-regulating, opposing way, forming the core of the selfprotective strategy seen in grandiose narcissism. Placing this self-regulatory emotional dynamic at the center of grandiose narcissism, we present an affect-centric process model that aims to explain antagonistic self-protective behaviors shown by individuals high on grandiose narcissism. Specifically, we conceptualize these self-protective processes as rooted in a strong status motive, combined with a stable tendency to experience envy in response to upward comparisons that pose ego or status threats. To regulate envy, we propose that contempt is automatically activated, leading to devaluation through indifference, which in turn fosters social conflict. . We further apply these dynamics to explain the change of relationship trajectories (short-term acquaintance vs. long-term acquaintance) of individuals high on grandiose narcissism, by suggesting the envy-contempt dynamic to exacerbate in long-term acquaintances, in which individuals high on grandiose narcissism tend to defend against the uprise of feelings of dependency on their partners admiration.While supporting empirical findings are outlined throughout the article, we finally propose a variety of questions that should be addressed in the future in order to scrutinize our model.
Keywords: Affective Neuroscience, Contempt, envy, Grandiose narcissism, psychodynamic theory, Self-regulation
Received: 29 Apr 2025; Accepted: 05 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Raftopoulos and Unterrainer. 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) or licensor 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.
* Correspondence:
Alexandros Raftopoulos, Sigmund Freud University Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Human-Friedrich Unterrainer, Sigmund Freud University Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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