Narcissism but Not Criminality Is Associated With Aggression in Women: A Study Among Female Prisoners and Women Without a Criminal Record

Abstract

Aggression has drawn research attention during the past decades. It remains unclear how self-esteem, self-perception, narcissism and certain socio-demographic factors impact the course of aggression. Female aggression is considered to differ in its origins and is understudied. Only few studies have attempted to examine the aforementioned variables among females, while none of them included a comparison between delinquent and non-delinquent individuals. The present study examines the effect of self-esteem, self-perception, narcissism, and socio-demographic factors on aggression among female inmates and women without criminal record (non-delinquents). One hundred fifty-seven female inmates in the Attica's Korydallos Female Prison and 150 women with no criminal record were assessed with Buss & Perry Aggression Questionnaire, Rosenberg's Self-esteem Scale, Narcissistic Personality Inventory-40 and the Self-Perception Profile for Adults. When inmates were compared to non-delinquent women, it emerged that higher aggression could be independently predicted by higher levels of narcissistic personality traits and sociability, as well as lower age, lower education, lower self-esteem, and lower levels of self-perception items including nurturance, job competence and athletic abilities. Aggression was not predicted by the participants' group (inmates vs. non-delinquents). Within female inmates, independently of the type of their offense (convicted for violent vs. non-violent crimes), it was found that lower job competence, higher narcissistic personality traits and a history of childhood maltreatment could predict higher aggression. Our results support the notion that female aggression differs from male and highlight the significant parameters that may predict aggression either among women (inmates and non-delinquent women) or among female inmates (violent or non-violent crimes). It is the presence of narcissistic traits which predict aggression rather than criminality in general, including violent and non-violent crimes.

Predictors of criminal offending in a clinical sample of patients diagnosed with schizophrenia: A 6-year follow-up study.

“…The results from Step 2 of the hierarchical Cox regression (see Table 4), and before entering psychopathy to the model, showed that passive–aggressive PD and narcissistic PD are significant predictors of criminal behavior in schizophrenia. This is consistent with findings suggesting that passive–aggressive PD (Berman, Fallon, & Coccaro, 1998) and narcissistic PD (Kalemi et al, 2019) are significant predictors of aggressive behavior. However, with the inclusion of all four facets of the PCL-R, results showed that in addition to passive–aggressive PD and narcissistic PD, global functioning, and the Lifestyle and Antisocial facets of the PCL-R considerably contributed to the prediction of criminal behavior.…”

Interrelationship Differences between Personality Traits in Men and Women

“…This was mainly due to lower physical aggressiveness (Figure 2) in the absence of a difference in verbal ( Figure 3) and indirect (Figure 4) aggressiveness. According to some researchers, women mainly use indirect, relational aggression [7]. According our results, women didn't differ from men by indirect aggressiveness.…”

“…The investigations of the mechanisms of aggressiveness development in women are practically absent. Female aggression is considered to differ from male and findings from male samples can not apply to females [7]. Few studies mainly concerned manifestations of aggressiveness in women at various pathological conditions [8] or in women prisoners [7].…”

Short form of the five-factor narcissism inventory: A Japanese adaptation

“…Over the decades, several studies have endeavoured to refine the construct of narcissism (Krizan & Herlache, 2017;Russ et al, 2008). Such studies have sought for viable applications of narcissism in social (Huang, Krasikova, & Harms, 2019), criminal (Kalemi et al, 2019;Stone, 2007), and clinical (Kacel et al, 2017) domains.…”