The Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale: Updated and extended construct validation in community samples using a newly constructed German version.

Abstract

The Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale (HSNS) is a an economical, widely used self-report measure of vulnerable narcissism. Developed and mostly used as a unidimensional scale, previous structural examinations suggest two correlated dimensions, one emphasizing hypersensitive/neurotic aspects and the other highlighting egocentric/antagonistic aspects of vulnerable narcissism. The few extant factor analyses of the HSNS, however, differ profoundly in their methodological approach, the resulting item-to-factor assignment, and lack a thorough validation of the two putative subscales. To fill these gaps, we systematically examined and compared alternative measurement models for the HSNS and conducted comprehensive correlation analyses to map the proposed HSNS dimensions onto current models of general personality, narcissism, and psychopathology. In a first study, we constructed a German adaptation using data from three large samples (accumulated N = 3,655). In-depth examination of this German HSNS (Study 2, N = 1,359) confirmed the dimensions Oversensitivity and Egocentrism and suggested at least metric model invariance across gender and age. The two dimensions displayed distinct nomological nets and differed with respect to various personality traits, personality pathology markers, the Hierarchical Taxonomy of Psychopathology, and psychological (mal-)adjustment. HSNS-Oversensitivity corresponds with measures of neurotic narcissism and predicts internalizing pathology and intrapersonal dysfunctions, whereas Egocentrism overlaps with antagonistic narcissism, low agreeableness, and externalizing problems. Taken together, our research reconciles the HSNS with other multidimensional narcissism measures as well as current dimensional models of personality and psychopathology and attests to its utility to capture vulnerable narcissistic traits at a finer grained level. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).