overt and covert narcissism in iranian students: the role of self-esteem and shame

objective: for decades, both theory and research have focused on the role of self-esteem and shame in constructing narcissistic traits. however, studies on the exact relationship between these two and overt and covert facets of narcissism have been equivocal.  methods: the current study is correlational. it examined these relationships among 308 iranian college students (155 males, 153 females, mean age=23.49 years, sd=2.83). the target population was all students of national universities of tehran, iran. the sampling method was non-random multi-step clustering. participants were asked to fill four self-report measures: narcissistic personality inventory (npd), rosenberg self-esteem scale (rses), test of selfconscious affect (tosca-3), and hypersensitive narcissism scale (hsns). the data were analyzed by spss 19.0.0 software, using pearson’s correlation, t-test and multiple regression analysis methods.  results: surprisingly, there was no significant difference between men and women with respect to npi scores. findings also revealed that shame was negatively related to overt narcissism (r=-0.22, p<0.05) and positively related to covert narcissism (r=0.23, p<0.05). self-esteem was found to be positively correlated with overt narcissism (r=0.42, p<0.01) and negatively correlated with covert narcissism (r=-0.30, p<0.01).  conclusion: the results provide support for the models of overt narcissism in which the narcissistic self serves as a buffer against inner feelings of inferiority. it also supports the importance of shame and low self-esteem in shaping the covert narcissistic traits. however, shame could not differentiate between overt and covert narcissism. the empirical, cultural, and clinical implications of the findings are discussed.