Does Narcissistic Personality Disorder Get Better With Age? What a College Study Found
Many carers worry that narcissistic traits will only get worse with time. If a young person is arrogant, self-absorbed, dismissive, entitled, or lacking empathy at 18, will they become even more narcissistic as they move into adulthood? This important study followed the same university students over several years to find out. Instead of comparing different groups from different generations, the researchers tracked the same young adults through their first four years of college and looked specifically at clinically significant narcissistic personality disorder features. The main finding was striking: on average, pathological narcissism went down over time. That does not mean every individual improved in the same way, and it does not mean the problem disappeared. But it does challenge the popular idea that young people are simply becoming more and more narcissistic. For carers, this offers something important: evidence that narcissistic pathology in young adulthood is not fixed like stone. It can change, and in many cases it may soften as life experience, maturity, and personality development unfold.
What this study was trying to answer
There has been a lot of public discussion about whether young people are becoming more narcissistic. Some writers have even talked about a “narcissism epidemic.” But much of that debate has been based on questionnaires measuring normal personality traits, not on careful clinical assessment of narcissistic personality disorder.
This study asked a more serious and clinically useful question: what happens to pathological narcissism in the same people over time? Instead of comparing one student generation with another, the researcher followed 250 students from the start of university through the next four years.
That matters because it gives a much clearer picture of real development. It is one thing to compare groups of strangers from different years. It is much more meaningful to assess the same person again and again and see whether their narcissistic pathology rises, falls, or stays the same.
For carers, this is important because it speaks directly to the fear that “this is just who they are forever.” The study was designed to test whether pathological narcissism is truly stable or whether it changes during a very important developmental period.
The key question was not whether one generation looks more narcissistic than another, but whether the same young person changes over time.
The study followed the same students over four years
The research came from the Longitudinal Study of Personality Disorders, one of the first major long-term studies to follow personality pathology over time. The participants were first-year university students, assessed in their first, second, and fourth years of college.
Importantly, these were not just quick self-report questionnaires. The students were assessed using a standard clinical interview for personality disorders, carried out by trained clinicians. The interview looked at narcissistic personality disorder features in a proper diagnostic way.
This makes the study stronger than many of the headlines people read about narcissism. It was not based on social media opinions, not based on stereotypes, and not based only on normal-range traits like confidence or self-promotion. It focused on clinically meaningful narcissistic pathology.
For carers, that means the findings are more relevant to real life problems such as entitlement, lack of empathy, strained relationships, and emotional impairment, rather than simply high self-esteem or showiness.
The main finding: narcissistic pathology declined
The clearest result from the study was that narcissistic personality disorder features declined across the first four years of college. On average, the number of pathological narcissistic features went down rather than up.
This is an important finding because it goes against the idea that most young adults become increasingly narcissistic as they move through university life. In this study, the opposite pattern appeared. Pathological narcissism was generally higher at the beginning and then reduced over time.
In simple terms, many students seemed to arrive at university with more inflated, grandiose, or distorted ways of seeing themselves, and these features often eased as the years passed.
That does not mean all students improved in the same way. Some changed a lot. Some changed only a little. Some may even have worsened. But overall, the pattern was downward, not upward.
The study did not support the idea that pathological narcissism rises through college. On average, it went down.
Not everyone followed the same path
One of the most useful parts of the study is that it did not pretend all young adults are the same. The researcher found a great deal of variation between individuals. Some had much higher narcissistic pathology at the start. Some dropped quickly. Others changed more slowly.
This is very important for families. Carers often want certainty: will this person improve or not? The honest answer from the research is that there is no single pathway. There was a general decline, but the individual patterns were highly mixed.
A young man may begin university with obvious entitlement, arrogance, and dismissiveness, then gradually become more grounded as life challenges him. Another may remain rigid and self-focused for much longer. A third may seem improved in public but still show painful narcissistic patterns in intimate relationships.
So the study gives hope, but not a guarantee. It suggests flexibility is possible, not that change is automatic.
Why might narcissism go down during college?
The author suggests a very human explanation. Many young people arrive at university after years of school success, praise, competition, and achievement. They may come in feeling special, superior, or full of grand hopes about themselves. University life then confronts them with reality.
For the first time, they may be surrounded by equally bright, talented, or ambitious people. They may fail, feel average, be criticised, lose status, or discover that the world does not revolve around them.
This process may gradually reduce inflated self-views. Life experience, disappointment, effort, and maturity may all help weaken narcissistic enhancement over time.
For carers, this fits with something many families notice. The real world can sometimes teach what arguments cannot. A person may resist emotional feedback from loved ones, but the repeated demands of work, study, peers, relationships, and consequences may slowly reshape them.
College may reduce narcissistic pathology partly because real life challenges grandiosity and pushes young people toward maturity.
This study challenges the “narcissism epidemic” idea
A major message of the article is that we need to be careful when talking about a so-called epidemic of narcissism. Much of that popular debate has relied on self-report questionnaires that measure normal-range trait narcissism, not clinically significant narcissistic personality disorder.
That is a crucial difference. A student who likes admiration, thinks highly of themselves, or enjoys attention is not necessarily someone with pathological narcissism. Clinical narcissism involves impairment, dysfunction, and significant problems in relationships and everyday life.
This study specifically examined clinically meaningful narcissistic pathology, and its results did not show a general rise during the college years. Instead, it showed a decline.
For carers, this matters because media discussions can make things sound simplistic and hopeless. The reality is more nuanced. Pathological narcissism is not the same as ordinary vanity or confidence, and it does not always move in the same direction over time.
Certain personality traits predicted different patterns
The study also looked at which personality factors were linked to higher narcissistic pathology and to faster or slower change over time.
Higher anxiety, higher agentic positive emotion, and belonging to the group already at possible risk of personality disorder were linked with higher narcissistic pathology at the start. Lower affiliation and lower constraint were also linked with higher levels.
In simpler language, young adults who were more driven by status, incentive, and self-assertion tended to show more narcissistic pathology. Those who were less warm, less affiliative, and less constrained also tended to show more.
When it came to change over time, two traits stood out. Higher constraint predicted a less steep decline, meaning narcissistic features reduced more slowly. Higher agentic positive emotion predicted a steeper decline, meaning the narcissistic pathology dropped faster.
These findings are complex, but they suggest that narcissism does not exist by itself. It sits within a broader personality system. For carers, that means behaviour may improve not only because “narcissism gets better,” but because other underlying traits also change with age and experience.
Narcissistic pathology does not stand alone. It appears to be tied to wider personality patterns that also develop over time.
Personality disorders may be more changeable than once believed
For many years, personality disorders were seen as fixed, lifelong, and deeply stable. The article explains that older psychiatric thinking often treated them as enduring and almost unchangeable. But prospective long-term studies have increasingly shown that personality pathology can change.
This study adds to that evidence. It suggests that narcissistic personality disorder features, like other forms of personality pathology, are not always “set like plaster.”
That phrase is especially important for carers. Many families feel trapped by the idea that the person will never shift, soften, or grow. This research does not say change is easy, quick, or guaranteed. But it does say the old belief in complete rigidity is not supported by the evidence.
Even clinically significant narcissistic pathology can show movement over time. That is a meaningful message for anyone who has spent years feeling hopeless.
What carers should take from this
For carers, the most important message is hopeful but realistic. This study suggests that young adults with narcissistic pathology may improve over time, especially across important developmental years. Maturity, life experience, and wider personality development may all play a part.
But the study also reminds us that change is uneven. Some people improve more than others. Some remain highly impaired. Some may look better in one area of life but still be very difficult in close relationships.
So this is not a reason to drop boundaries or pretend everything will sort itself out. It is, however, a reason not to assume that early adult narcissism is permanent in exactly the same form forever.
A carer supporting an 18-year-old with grandiosity, entitlement, and little empathy may feel despair. This study suggests that the picture at 22 may not be the same. That is not certainty, but it is genuine evidence that development matters.
The young adult you see at 18 may not be the same person at 22. Narcissistic pathology can change.
The study’s limits matter too
The author is careful not to overclaim. The study covered only four years, and all participants were university students. That means the sample was more educated and more similar in age and background than the wider population.
It also means the findings may not apply in exactly the same way to older adults, people outside education, or those with more severe difficulties who never make it to university at all.
The researcher also points out that many other life factors could shape narcissistic pathology over time, such as parenting, trauma, peer relationships, poverty, divorce, health problems, or major losses. The study did not explain everything.
Still, it remains one of the strongest studies of its kind because it followed the same people, used standard clinical interviews, and measured change directly rather than guessing from snapshots.
Conclusion
This study offers one of the clearest longitudinal pictures we have of narcissistic personality disorder features in young adults. Its main finding is simple but powerful: pathological narcissism declined, on average, across the first four years of college.
That does not mean narcissism is harmless, temporary, or easy to treat. It does not mean every individual improved. And it does not erase the pain that carers often live with. But it does challenge the belief that narcissistic pathology only gets worse or remains fixed forever.
For families and carers, this is valuable. It supports a view of narcissistic pathology as something serious, but not always immovable. Development matters. Experience matters. Personality matures. And for at least some young adults, the traits that cause so much distress may begin to soften over time.
That may not solve the present pain, but it gives carers something real to hold onto: evidence that change is possible.
Source note
This article is based on the paper Narcissistic Personality Disorder Studied the Long Way: Predicting Change in Narcissistic Pathology During College by Mark F. Lenzenweger, published in the American Journal of Psychotherapy.
Read the original article here: https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.psychotherapy.20220020