Narcissism, core self-evaluation, and interpersonal trust among Chinese university students

International Journal of Research Studies in Psychology
CollabWritive Special Issue
2024 Volume 10 Issue 2

Available Online: 15 August 2024

Author/s:

Zhang, Xue*
Graduate School, Lyceum of the Philippines University – Batangas, Philippines
Affiliated Hospital of Binzhou Medical University, Shandong, China 264100

Lopez, Elna
Lyceum of the Philippines University – Batangas, Philippines

Abstract:

At present, with the continuous popularization and deepening of education, Chinese young people have an increasingly high need for self-awareness and self-cognition. Young people are beginning to think about who they are, they have a great passion for what they look like, they want to become the real sense of their own, their own different. Young people hold the hope of the future life, eager to become a personality, recognized outstanding. Starting from the relationship between narcissism level, core self-evaluation and interpersonal trust, this study explores the personality development of Chinese college students and puts forward targeted intervention suggestions. Demographic variables (gender, place of birth, only child, major, grade) were used in this study, and the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) was adopted. the Core Self-evaluation Scale (CSES), the Interpersonal Trust Scale (ITS) explores the relationships among narcissism, core self-evaluation and interpersonal trust among Chinese college students in the context of Chinese culture.Through data collation and analysis, this study found that the fairly even distribution of respondents across various demographic categories (sex, place of origin, family background, major, and year of study ensures that the findings are not skewed towards a particular demographic and are more representative of the overall student population. Also, respondents have average levels of narcissism, core self-evaluation, and interpersonal trust which implies healthy psychological profile for university students. In addition, the study reveals that sex, origin, and grade significantly influence the levels of narcissism, core self-evaluation, and interpersonal trust among university students. Specifically, men tend to exhibit higher narcissism and core self-evaluation than women, while women report higher interpersonal trust. Likewise, urban students show higher self-admiration compared to rural students, whose interpersonal trust is greater. Interestingly, interpersonal trust declines as students progress through their academic years, with marginal significance observed in the factor of being an only child. These findings emphasize the complex interplay between individual characteristics and social factors in shaping psychological constructs. Results also revealed that strong positive correlations among the different dimensions of narcissism. However, narcissism was found to have a significant negative correlation with both core self-evaluation and interpersonal trust. Conversely, core self-evaluation and interpersonal trust exhibited a significant positive correlation. Lastly, narcissism significantly predicts lower levels of both core self-evaluation and interpersonal trust, while core self-evaluation significantly predicts higher levels of interpersonal trust.  Additionally, core self-evaluation has a significant mediating effect on the prediction of narcissism and interpersonal trust, and the mediating effect is mainly on covert narcissism.

Keywords: narcissism, core self-evaluation, interpersonal trust

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5861/ijrsp.2024.020

Cite this article:
Zhang, X., & Lopez, E. (2024). Narcissism, core self-evaluation, and interpersonal trust among Chinese university students. International Journal of Research Studies in Psychology, 10(2), 93-116. https://doi.org/10.5861/ijrsp.2024.020

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