The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating effects of perceived social support and ego-resilience on the relationship between covert narcissism and college adjustment in female college students. Data were collected from 234 female college students enrolled in a four-year university between the ages of 18 and 27 using a self-report questionnaire consisting of the Covert Narcissism Scale, College Adjustment Scale, Perceived Social Support Scale, and Ego-Resilience Scale. Reliability analysis, descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, mediation analysis, and bootstrapping were conducted using SPSS 27.0 and PROCESS Macro 4.2 programs to test the significance of indirect effects. The main findings of this study are as follows. First, covert narcissism and college adjustment were significantly negatively related to each other, and perceived social support and ego-resilience were significantly positively related. Perceived social support and ego-resilience were each significantly negatively related to intrinsic self-efficacy and significantly positively related to college adjustment. Second, the paths between covert narcissism and college adjustment were partially mediated by perceived social support and ego-resilience, respectively. Covert narcissism had a direct effect on college adjustment and an indirect effect on college adjustment through the mediation of ego-resilience or perceived social support. Third, the sequential mediation effects of perceived social support and ego-resilience on the relationship between covert narcissism and college adjustment were significant, suggesting that covert narcissism influences college adjustment by mediating perceived social support and ego-resilience in turn. Finally, the significance, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Park et al. (Fri,) studied this question.