In psychology, grandiosity is a sense of superiority, uniqueness, or invulnerability that is unrealistic and not based on personal capability. 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. Grandiosity is a core diagnostic criterion for hypomania/mania in bipolar disorder and narcissistic personality disorder.
Measurement 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 Specific Psychotic Experiences Questionnaire (SPEQ), Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5), Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, and diagnostic interviews for bipolar disorders and 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.
Specific manifestations
In narcissism 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). The term "narcissistic grandiosity" is sometimes used as a synonym for grandiose narcissism. In the Alternative DSM-5 model for personality disorders (AMPD), grandiosity is one out of two pathological personality traits required for a diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder, with the other one being attention seeking.
In bipolar disorder Grandiosity is a core diagnostic feature of the manic and hypomanic episodes of bipolar disorder type 1 and 2, respectively. The presentation varies across disorder type, but generally manifests as extreme self-confidence associated with a bold, proactive pursuit of certain (often unrealistic) goals, including writing a book, publicity-seeking over ideas or inventions devised without appropriate knowledge, experience or expertise, or taking major risks (e.g., in business or with finances) on the assumption that one cannot fail. In bipolar type 1, grandiosity can transition into full-blown delusions of grandeur (e.g., being a famous intellectual; having a special relationship with important world figures), often associated with other mood-congruent psychotic features.
In psychopathy Grandiosity features in Factor 1, Facet 1 (Interpersonal) in the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) test. Individuals endorsing this criterion appear arrogant and boastful, and may be unrealistically optimistic about their future. The American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5 also notes that persons with antisocial personality disorder often display an inflated self-image, and can appear "excessively opinionated, self-assured, or cocky", and often hold others in contempt.
Mechanism Despite the prominence of grandiosity in the research literature, few theories or even studies of its underlying mechanisms exist. Approximately 23% of the variance in grandiosity is explained by genetics, with the majority of remaining variance attributable to non-shared environmental factors.
Cognitive Research has consistently indicated a role of positive rumination (repetitive positive self-focused thoughts). Recently, an experimental study found that having participants engage in overly-positive rumination (i.e. think about times when they felt special, unique, important or superior) lead to increases in state grandiosity, whereas a control distraction condition conferred no such increment. Another study confirmed that positive ruminations confer grandiose self-perceptions in the moment, and found that (grandiosity-prone) patients with bipolar disorder (compared with healthy controls) exhibited heightened connectivity between brain regions associated with self-relevant information-processing during this task (medial prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices) Further, experimental studies suggest that grandiose narcissists maintain their inflated self-esteem following criticism by recalling self-aggrandizing memories. Correlational designs further confirm the associations of mania/hypomania and grandiose narcissism with positive self-rumination, and to specific expressions of positive rumination after success (e.g. believing that success in one domain indicates likely success in another). Grandiose fantasies, conceptually similar to positive rumination, also feature in narcissism. While grandiose narcissism has been associated with attentional and mnemonic biases to positive self-related words,
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![Grandiosity: A 19th-century cabinet card of a Persian king. His official titles, including "The Pivot of the Universe" and "The Shadow of God'', illustrate grandiosity, demonstrating an extreme claim to supreme status and cosmic superiority.[1]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7f/Cabinet_card_-_The_Pivot_of_the_Universe.png/1280px-Cabinet_card_-_The_Pivot_of_the_Universe.png?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=parser&utm_content=thumbnail)
