How Do Narcissistic People Use Defense Styles? The Importance of Focusing on the Hedonistic Present or the Negative Past

Iwona Nowakowska; Marta Bodecka-Zych; Izabela Kaźmierczak; Irena Jelonkiewicz

doi:10.18290/rpsych2025.0009

Published : 2026-03-20

No. Online First

How Do Narcissistic People Use Defense Styles? The Importance of Focusing on the Hedonistic Present or the Negative Past

Iwona Nowakowska

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7701-5612

Marta Bodecka-Zych

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7766-1446

Izabela Kaźmierczak

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3959-0178

Irena Jelonkiewicz

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3942-2473

DOI: https://doi.org/10.18290/rpsych2025.0009

Abstract

Narcissism affects how people interpret and react to psychological stressors. How stressful events are processed with temporal categories may play a role in the adaptivity of the defense mechanisms used. This study aimed to test whether the connection of narcissism with adaptive and maladaptive defense styles is mediated by present hedonistic and past negative time perspectives—two perspectives related to the characteristics of narcissism. N = 719 participants from the general population took part in the online panel-based questionnaire study. The results show that narcissism relates positively to adaptive and maladaptive defense styles. This relationship is mediated by the present hedonistic time perspective in both models and the past negative time perspective only in the case of maladaptive defense style as a dependent variable. The results show empirical evidence for the twofold nature of narcissism and present hedonism in coping with stressors. They also hint at using time perspective themes in the therapeutic work on defense mechanisms in people with high narcissism. This is the first study to assess time perspectives in the context of defense mechanisms and narcissism performed on a large sample. It is valuable for scientific and practical settings given the high prevalence of narcissistic traits in the population.

Keywords:

Dark Triad, defense styles, narcissism, present hedonistic time perspective, past negative time perspective

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