People with a low self-esteem can possibly be more violent to more easy targets to increase their own self-esteem (Ha, Peterson & Sharp, 2008). According to the model of Kohut (1977)...Show morePeople with a low self-esteem can possibly be more violent to more easy targets to increase their own self-esteem (Ha, Peterson & Sharp, 2008). According to the model of Kohut (1977) narcissistic traits can lead to conduct problems. This is because persons with high narcissistic traits won’t be able to change their high self-image. Lastly, the mask model (Kernberg, 1975) presumes that people with conduct problems can have a negative implicit self-esteem that can be masked by narcissistic traits. However, literature shows mixed evidence. Therefore this study was interested in to what extent narcissistic traits and/or low self-esteem are related to conduct problems in adolescents of 12-17 years old. This research included 549 adolescents (mean age: 14.8; SD = 1.22; 51% male) from 9 prevocational high schools. The measuring instruments were questionnaires and a computer task. To measure explicit self-esteem the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale (Rosenberg, 1965) was used. Implicit self esteem was measured with the Implicit Association Task- Self Esteem (Greenwald, McGhee & Schwartz, 1998). Narcissistic traits were measured by a subscale of the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (Das & De Ruiter, 2003). Conduct problems were measured by the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Treffers & Van Widenfelt, 2005). The hypotheses have been tested by a regression analyses and interaction analysis. Results were that a low explicit self-esteem and narcissistic traits are individually related to conduct problems. Limitations of this study are the small effect sizes, risk of social desirability bias and the limited measure for narcissistic traits. However, strengths are the large and heterogeneous sample size, measuring both types of self-esteem and measuring narcissistic traits and self-esteem in the same sample. Future research can especially concentrate on interventions that increase explicit self-esteem.Show less