gender studies Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field ...

, the analysis of gender differences in narcissism shows that male narcissism and female narcissism differ in a number of aspects.

Jeffrey Kluger Jeffrey Kluger (born 1954) is a senior writer at ''Time'' magazine and author of nine books on various topics, such as ''The Narcissist Next Door'' (2014); ''Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio'' (2005); ''The Sibling Effect' ...

, in his 2014 book ''The Narcissist Next Door'' suggested that our society, still largely

patriarchal Patriarchy is a social system in which positions of Dominance hierarchy, dominance and Social privilege, privilege are primarily held by men. It is used, both as a technical Anthropology, anthropological term for families or clans controll ...

, is more likely to tolerate male

narcissism Narcissism is a self-centered personality style characterized as having an excessive interest in one's physical appearance or image and an excessive preoccupation with one's own needs, often at the expense of others. Narcissism exists on a co ...

and

aggressiveness Aggression is overt or covert, often harmful, social interaction with the intention of inflicting damage or other harm upon another individual; although it can be channeled into creative and practical outlets for some. It may occur either reacti ...

than these of females. This assertion was voiced, although without definite proof, by a number of other researchers. In 2015 a number of media outlets reportedJeffrey Kluger
"Why Men Are More Narcissistic Than Women"
/ref>
/ref> about a study at the

University of Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 18 ...

which analyzed 31 years of data of narcissism research and concluded that men consistently scored higher in the first two of three aspects of the

Narcissistic Personality Inventory The Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) was developed in 1979 by Raskin and Hall, and since then, has become one of the most widely utilized personality measures for non-clinical levels of the trait narcissism. Since its initial development, t ...

leadership Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets view ...

authority In the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state, ''authority'' is practiced in ways such a judicial branch or an executive branch of government.''The N ...

, exploitative/

entitlement An entitlement is a provision made in accordance with a legal framework of a society. Typically, entitlements are based on concepts of principle ("rights") which are themselves based in concepts of social equality or enfranchisement. In psycholo ...

, and grandiose/

exhibitionism Exhibitionism is the act of exposing in a public or semi-public context one's intimate parts – for example, the breasts, genitals or buttocks. The practice may arise from a desire or compulsion to expose themselves in such a manner to group ...

. The team leader of the research, Emily Grijalva, commented that on average this difference is slight (a one-quarter of a

standard deviation In statistics, the standard deviation is a measure of the amount of variation or dispersion of a set of values. A low standard deviation indicates that the values tend to be close to the mean (also called the expected value) of the set, while ...

) and there was almost no difference in the exhibitionism dimension (which covers such aspects as vanity, self-absorption and attention-seeking). She notices that a similar degree of difference is observed for other

personality trait In psychology, trait theory (also called dispositional theory) is an approach to the study of human personality. Trait theorists are primarily interested in the measurement of ''traits'', which can be defined as habitual patterns of behaviour, tho ...

s, e.g., slightly higher

neuroticism In the study of psychology, neuroticism has been considered a fundamental personality trait. For example, in the Big Five approach to personality trait theory, individuals with high scores for neuroticism are more likely than average to be moody ...

for women or slightly higher risk-taking for men."Narcissism increases the chance you'll be seen as a leader, especially if you're a man"
Emily Grijalva, Monday 9 March 2015, ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' The reasons of reported gender difference were outside the scope of the study, however the authors speculated that it is rooted in historically established social conventions about what is acceptable for a particular gender and what are the traditional

social role A role (also rôle or social role) is a set of connected behaviors, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms as conceptualized by people in a social situation. It is an expected or free or continuously changing behavior and may have a given indivi ...

s for genders. A number of earlier studies (on smaller scales) reported similar bias. A further indication for the trend was a 2008 finding that the lifetime

narcissistic personality disorder Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a personality disorder characterized by a life-long pattern of exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive need for admiration, a diminished ability or unwillingness to empathize with other ...

is more prevalent for men (7.7%) than for women (4.8%).Grijalva et al. (2015) citing Stinson, F. S., Dawson, D. A., Goldstein, R. B., Chou, S. P., Huang, B., Smith, S. M., . . .Grant, B. F. (2008). "Prevalence, correlates, disability, and comorbidity of DSM–IV narcissistic personality disorder: Results from the wave 2 national epidemiologic survey on alcohol and related conditions". ''The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry'', 69, 1033–1045.

References

Further reading