Category: Narcissism

How to tell the difference between a narcissist and someone with high self-esteem.

Criticism makes narcissists aggressive, but people with high self-esteem are not particularly bothered by criticism.

This is because, at heart, narcissists often have a strange relationship with their self-esteem, so they hate to be criticised.

Any criticism will usually make them aggressive in response.

Psychologists measured the self-esteem, narcissism and aggressive behaviour of 540 undergraduate students.

They found that the more narcissistic students tended to verbally lash out more when they were criticised.

The study’s authors write:

“Narcissists mainly want to punish or defeat someone who has threatened their highly favorable views of themselves.

People who are preoccupied with validating a grandiose self-image apparently find criticism highly upsetting and lash out against the source of it.”

People who had high self-esteem did not become more aggressive towards those who criticised them.

Narcissists, meanwhile, find the threat to their ego too great.

The seeds of narcissism can be sown at a young age, said Professor Brad J. Bushman, the study’s first author:

“…if kids begin to develop unrealistically optimistic opinions of themselves and those beliefs are constantly rejected by others, their feelings of self-love could make these kids potentially dangerous to those around them.”

If provoking the narcissist sounds dangerous, then another method of identifying the narcissist is simply to ask them.

Professor Bushman, speaking about a previous study, explained:

“People who are willing to admit they are more narcissistic than others probably actually are more narcissistic.

People who are narcissists are almost proud of the fact.

You can ask them directly because they don’t see narcissism as a negative quality — they believe they are superior to other people and are fine with saying that publicly.”

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The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Bushman & Baumeister, 1998).

What is fuelling the rise in narcissism? Are narcissists born or created?

Giving someone power can make them into a narcissist.

However, it depends on how much testosterone they naturally have in their system.

Despite being known as the ‘male hormone’, testosterone is also present in women’s bodies, although at lower levels.

When a person, male or female, has high levels of testosterone, power is more likely to corrupt them, activating narcissistic tendencies, the researchers found.

Dr Nicole Mead, the study’s first author, explained that:

“Narcissists can feel a sense of entitlement – they expect and demand respect from others as well as special privileges,”

They are willing to exploit others to get what they want.”

For the study, 206 people’s testosterone levels were tested and then they were given group activities in which they were sometimes put in positions of power.

Dr Mead explained the results:

“While power doesn’t turn everyone into a destructive tyrant, it has pernicious effects when it gets into the hands of those who want it most.

Power increased narcissism only among those with high-baseline testosterone – people who want to achieve and retain positions of power.”

The component of narcissism that was boosted by power is known as ‘exploitative-entitlement’.

In other words, power made people more ready to exploit others and to feel it is their right to do so.

Dr Nicole Mead, the study’s first author, said:

“Power is an essential component of social life.

Although the corrupting nature of power has been noted for centuries, the way it changes how people see themselves in relation to others remained an enigma.

We thought narcissistic self-views may be a missing piece of the puzzle for understanding how power corrupts.”

Dr Mead thinks much can be pinned on a sense of entitlement:

“This research is some of the first to look at factors that fuel the rise of narcissism and to pinpoint the change in self-views that can explain the corrupting influence of power.

Moreover, the work shows that the destructive effects of power were not due to narcissistic feelings of superiority but rather narcissistic feelings that one is special and should be treated accordingly.

Feelings of exploitation and entitlement may help those who crave power to retain a power gap between themselves and others.”

The study was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General (Mead et al., 2018).

Research reveals the surprising self-awareness behind narcissistic behaviour.

Narcissists do know they are narcissists and they are happy with it, research finds.

Far from being unaware of their brash, flamboyant nature, they revel in it.

They know others don’t rate them as highly as they rate themselves.

Perhaps all their boasting is their attempt to get the rest of us up to speed on how brilliant they are.

The study’s authors write:

“First, narcissists understand that others do not see them as positively as they see themselves.

Second, they understand that their reputation is more positive in a first impression context than among people who know them well.

Third, narcissists describe themselves and their reputation as narcissistic.”

For the three studies included in the research, hundreds of acquaintances were asked what they thought of each other, and of how they saw themselves.

People who scored higher or narcissistic traits rated themselves as more intelligent, likeable, attractive and funny.

They also rated themselves higher on the negative aspects of narcissism, such as being arrogant, power-oriented and impulsive.

This suggests that narcissists are aware of the effect their behaviour has on others.

They knew that other people didn’t think they were as great as they thought they were.

The study’s authors write:

“…narcissists believe that others do not see them as positively as they see themselves.

For example, from the perspective of narcissists, others fail to perceive the full magnitude of their likeability, intelligence, and attractiveness.

The discrepancy between their self-perceptions and their meta-perceptions might explain why narcissists behave in arrogant ways (e.g., brag).

Specifically, they may be seeking the recognition they believe they deserve.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Carlson et al., 2011).

Self-focus blinds the narcissist to others, but there’s a way to break through.

Narcissistic individuals are highly self-focused, so they have a problem with empathy.

This makes them hard to deal with because they are not naturally that concerned about your point of view — or anyone else’s.

However, forcing a narcissist to put themselves in someone else’s shoes can help them empathise.

The conclusion comes from a new study looking at how people can be encouraged to make charitable donations.

The researchers found that narcissists were not affected by appeals that focused on the charity recipient — the starving man, diseased woman or lost child.

The narcissist can’t see how this is relevant to them.

However, they were moved to donate by appeals that asked them to imagine themselves being starving, diseased or lost.

The key, then, is making the narcissist really feel that the calamity is happening to them.

When the narcissist projects themselves into the distressed person, they are much more motivated to act.

Dr Arun Lakshmanan, study co-author, said:

“It’s the difference between showing the need and asking the donor to ‘stand in someone else’s shoes.

Charitable giving is about having empathy — recognizing and responding to the needs and emotions of other people.

Narcissists have difficulty with that, so asking them to imagine themselves as the person in need can help elicit genuine concern and, thus, donations.”

Narcissists could not be reached when they could not imagine themselves in the recipient’s circumstances.

For example, when the disease only affects the opposite gender or animals.

Dr Lakshmanan said:

“Particularly for causes to which donors have little personal connection — an unfamiliar disease, a need halfway around the globe — we recommend using vivid pictures, first-person stories and ‘imagine-self’ language to draw in high-narcissism donors.”

The study was published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (Kang & Lakshmanan, 2018).

Grandiosity and confidence may lead to psychological benefits.

Young people who are somewhat grandiose and with an inflated sense of authority have higher levels of well-being, research finds.

Both of these traits — grandiosity and an inflated sense of self — are components of narcissism.

However, young people who displayed entitlement and a willingness to exploit others experienced lower life satisfaction.

This suggests that some aspects of narcissism can be beneficial to psychological health.

However, the findings were different for older people.

Narcissistic personality traits can change over the lifespan, explained Dr Patrick Hill, the study’s first author:

“Most people think of narcissism as a trait that doesn’t change much across the lifespan.

But a lot of recent studies have shown that the developmental trajectory of narcissism goes upward in adolescence and what we call emerging adulthood — the late teens and early 20s, and then typically declines.”

It may be that some aspects of narcissism are ‘useful’ when we are younger, but they naturally fade away with age.

The study included 368 undergraduate students and 439 of their family members.

It compared the personalities of young people with those of their mothers.

It tested both how they saw themselves and how they were seen by others.

The three aspects of narcissism the researchers examined were:

1. Inflated sense of leadership: a person who believes they know a lot and others should come to them for advice.
2. Grandiose exhibitionism: a person who likes to show off.
3. Entitlement and a willingness to exploit others.

In contrast to the findings for young people, older adults with narcissistic traits were seen by others as neurotic and unreliable.

There was also no benefit to life satisfaction for the first two narcissistic traits, as was seen in younger people.

Not all forms of narcissism are always bad, the research concludes.

Professor Brent Roberts, study co-author, said that narcissism can help people to…

…navigate adolescence and the turmoil involved in trying to find a sense of identity.

Later in life, however, those same traits appear to be related to less life satisfaction and a poorer reputation.”

The study was published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science (Hill & Roberts, 2011).