Grandiosity

In psychology, grandiosity is a sense of superiority, uniqueness, or invulnerability. It may be expressed by exaggerated beliefs regarding one's abilities, the belief that few other people have anything in common with oneself, and that one can only be understood by a few, very special people. The personality trait of grandiosity is principally associated with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), but also is a feature in the occurrence and expression of antisocial personality disorder, and the manic and hypomanic episodes of bipolar disorder. Few scales exist for the sole purpose of measuring grandiosity, though one recent attempt is the Narcissistic Grandiosity Scale (NGS), an adjective rating scale where one indicates the applicability of a word to oneself (e.g. superior, glorious). Grandiosity is also measured as part of other tests, including the Personality Assessment for DSM-5 (PID-5), Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, and diagnostic interviews for NPD. The Grandiosity section of the Diagnostic Interview for Narcissism (DIN), for instance, describes: The person exaggerates talents, capacity, and achievements in an unrealistic way. The person believes in their invulnerability or does not recognize their limitations. The person has grandiose fantasies. The person believes that they do not need other people. The person overexamines and downgrades other people's projects, statements, or dreams in an unrealistic manner. The person regards themself as unique or special when compared to other people. The person regards themself as generally superior to other people. The person behaves self-centeredly and/or self-referentially. The person behaves in a boastful or pretentious way. Grandiose narcissism is a subtype of narcissism with grandiosity as its central feature, in addition to other agentic and antagonistic traits (e.g., dominance, attention-seeking, entitlement, manipulation). Confusingly, the term "narcissistic grandiosity" is sometimes used as a synonym for grandiose narcissism and other times used to refer to the subject of this article (superiority feelings).