EXPLORING NARCISSISM AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS: PREVALENCE AND ITS EFFECTS ON SELF-ESTEEM

Abstract

Narcissism is one of the personality traits characterized by a lack of empathy, a craving for admiration and a sense of superiority and entitlement. Self-esteem is the beliefs and perceptions an individual has about themselves or a reflective, overall judgment of all the personality aspects of a person can assess about him/herself. The current study aimed to analyze the prevalence of narcissism among university students and to assess its effects on university students’ self-esteem. The study was quantitative in nature, following a descriptive research design. The population of the study comprised undergraduate students at the University of Peshawar and the Islamia College Peshawar. The population of the study included all the undergraduate students of these universities, totaling 10943 and 5030 students, respectively. Samples of 370 and 360 were selected from both the universities using multistage and stratified random sampling technique. To assess the prevalence of narcissism among students, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) was used, while the state self-esteem scale was used to evaluate students’ self-esteem. However, the sample size was drawn using Krejci and Morgan sampling table. The data was analyzed using linear regression. The level of students’ narcissism was measured, and data was tabulated. The study concluded that majority of students had an average level of narcissism, while a significant number of students showed high level of narcissism on NPI. In contrast, a small number of students had low levels of narcissism, the study further concluded that Narcissism affects students’ self-esteem, and students with high narcissism are more vulnerable to negative comments and criticism.