Guilt and Shame Proneness in Relations to Covert Narcissism among Emerging Adults

It was hypothesized that there would be a significant relationship between Covert Narcissism and Shame and Guilt Proneness. Also, Guilt and Shame proneness would predict Covert Narcissism. This study comprised 180 emerging adults, in the age group of 18 to 23 years. The measure of the study included the Maladaptive Covert Narcissism and Guilt and Shame Proneness Scale. The study also investigated gender differences in covert narcissism. The results of the study indicated that there was a positive correlation between covert narcissism and the two dimensions of shame proneness namely negative self-evaluation and shame withdrawal. Additionally, no significant relationship was found between guilt-proneness and covert narcissism. The results further revealed that Shame Withdrawal, a single variable regression test was used. The findings suggested that Shame Withdrawal contribute 9% variance in Covert Narcissism which is statistical significance and negative self-evaluation also significantly predicted covert narcissism accounting. Furthermore, the average score of men on covert narcissism was significantly more than that of females which means males have significantly higher ten dencies to develop covert narcissism.