The New Science of Narcissism
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Summary
Narcissism is something that looms large in our cultural consciousness. We often accuse friends and family of being narcissistic, think we observe the quality of politicians and celebrities, and wonder why society is becoming more self-absorbed over time. But what is narcissism really, once you get beyond the pop-culture conception of a buzzword? Well, my guest today will unpack that for us. His name is Dr. Keith Campbell, and he s a professor of psychology and the author of The New Science of Narcissism. Keith explains that narcissism centers on an antagonistic sense of entitlement and self-importance, and how the latter can actually underlie seeming cases of anxiety and depression. We then discuss what causes someone to become a narcissist, whether narcissism has increased in younger generations, and when narcissism tips over into outright personality disorder.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. Now narcissism
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is something that looms large in our cultural consciousness. We accuse friends and family
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of being narcissistic, think we observe the quality of politicians and celebrities, and
00:00:19.180
wonder society is becoming more self-absorbed over time. But what is narcissism really once
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you get beyond the pop cultural conception of colloquial buzzword? Well, my guest today
00:00:27.320
will unpack that for us. His name is W. Keith Campbell, and he's a professor of psychology
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and the author of The New Science of Narcissism. Keith explains that narcissism centers on an
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antagonistic sense of entitlement and self-importance, that there are actually two types of it, grandiose
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and vulnerable, and how the latter can actually underlie seeming cases of anxiety and depression.
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We then discuss what causes someone to become a narcissist, whether narcissism has increased
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in younger generations, and when narcissism tips over into outright personality disorder. Keith
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explains how narcissists are attractive early on in a relationship, but lose their shine
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over time, and how in a similar manner, narcissists readily emerge as leaders, but then often
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struggle to hold on to their position and power. We then get in the relationship between narcissism
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and social media, and how to get the benefits of narcissism, which isn't entirely a bad thing,
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while mitigating its downsides. Out of the show is over, check out our show notes at
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aom.is slash narcissism. All right, Keith Campbell, welcome to the show.
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So you are a professor of psychology at the University of Georgia, and you've spent a lot
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of your career researching and writing about narcissism. How did that happen? How did you end
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up starting psychology and think, I'm going to study narcissism?
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Yeah, I have been studying narcissism a good 25, 30 years now since graduate school, and
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the story isn't as dramatic as you would think. It wasn't some relationship or bad boss or something.
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Really, I was interested in basic questions of how people think about themselves and how people
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overestimate their own sense of worth or their own abilities, and we call these self-enhancement
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effects and social psychology. So a lot of us do it. We think we're more attractive than we are
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and more humble than we are, and we sort of say we're taller than we are, and we do a lot of things
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like this. And so I started studying narcissism initially as a way to get at that sort of basic
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self-enhancement, understand ego. Why are some people more prone to inflate their egos than other
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people? Why are some people hogging credit and other people more humble? So it was really a basic
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research question at the beginning, and it just sort of took off.
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Well, so the word narcissism gets thrown around a lot in our culture. We accuse people of being
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narcissist all the time. We might accuse a friend. You're being so narcissistic right now. So I think
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there's a popular idea of what narcissism means. You think a lot about yourself, but as a psychologist
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and as a researcher, how do you define narcissism?
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Yeah, you're exactly right. I mean, we use the word, and it usually means something like you're
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a little selfish, you're being self-centered, you're kind of a jerk, and it's often my ex-boyfriend was
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really narcissistic or my boss or whatever. So we use it, but we don't know why. And in psychology,
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there's these technical or more technical definitions, and there's really a few different
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ways to think about narcissism. So the first way is a personality trait, meaning we all have some
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level of narcissism. Some of us are relatively high. Some of us are relatively low. Most of us
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are somewhere in the middle. And in terms of that trait of narcissism, it has a couple different forms
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or faces. What most people that are listening are familiar with is grandiose narcissism. So it's this
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combination of sort of, I have a sense of entitlement. I'm important. I'm better than you. I'm attractive,
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but I'm also confident and outgoing and driven. I want to be a leader. I'm really a likable person
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when you meet me because of my energy and confidence. So it's this more, it's the kind of narcissism we see
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with actors or politicians, the Tony Stark kind of narcissism. And this other phase of narcissism
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shares this sense of entitlement and self-importance, but it's much more insecure and vulnerable and
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easily threatened. And we call this the vulnerable form of narcissism or vulnerable narcissism.
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And these are folks that are sort of think they're really important, but don't do much. They're a
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little more introverted. They have little lower self-esteem. They end up in therapy more. They don't
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end up running the world. They end up sort of seeking help and it's a different form.
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So we have those two basic traits of narcissism, vulnerable and grandiose. And then to make it
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even more confusing, there is a clinical or psychiatric disorder known as narcissistic
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personality disorder or NPD, which is an extreme form of narcissism that is grandiose, but also with
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some vulnerability. And when that becomes so extreme, it messes up your life. And in significantly,
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a clinically significant ways, it can be diagnosed as a disorder and treated. And that's relatively
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Gotcha. And I'd like to dig in more into narcissistic personality disorder. Do you see a
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lot in the popular culture about that as well? And you've written a lot about that. So I think
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the thing to point out is narcissism is a personality trait. It's not a mood. And that's something people
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often confuse. They kind of throw in these mental health terms, narcissism, depression, anxiety,
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but narcissism, like depression, anxiety is about mood. Narcissism is about personality.
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Yeah, absolutely. These are traits, meaning this is sort of how you are. And the way we think about
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a trait, it's the way you are across time. You know, you're this way now, you're going to be this
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way in a few years and also across situations. So the way you are at work and the way you are at home,
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if you're kind of consistent. So people are narcissistic, tend to be narcissistic over
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time. If you're just narcissistic this afternoon, I think, well, maybe you got into the whiskey and
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cocaine or something. And if you're narcissistic across situations, it makes sense. If you're only
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narcissistic at your workplace, but not at home, maybe that's just a job requirement.
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So to be a personality trait, it has to be sort of general in your life.
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Okay. So narcissism is a personality trait, but it's a personality trait made up of other
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Absolutely. And that's really true of a lot of these more, it's a complex trait.
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And it has components of it, of more general traits, which I'm happy to talk about if you want.
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Yeah, talk about this. I think most people are familiar with the big five,
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but for those who aren't, what are the big five personality traits and which of those make up
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Yeah. So the big five personality traits are what happened when you look at all the potential
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personality traits that we have. And, and we can find those in dictionaries or thesauruses
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and you kind of go, well, let's put those together. How many are there really? And you go, well,
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there's about five there that kind of hang together. Well, and those five are easily remembered because
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they spell ocean or canoe. If you spell ocean, which is my preferred way that the first of the big
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five traits is openness to experience. And this is a combination of being sort of creative and
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interested in ideas and philosophy. So a lot of people in academics and philosophy, really high
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in openness, a lot of artists. The next is conscientiousness, which is the trait most associated
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with work and discipline. And it's made up of sort of discipline and organization, but also
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industriousness and work ethic. The third of the big five, the E is extroversion. And this is one
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most people are familiar with meaning sociability, like extroverts like to go out to parties and things,
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but it also means drive and ambition. Sort of leaders are very extroverted. And this extroversion piece
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is what you see with grandiose narcissism. That's that sort of drive. And this is why grandiose narcissists
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are likable is the extroversion. The next in the ocean is A for agreeableness. And agreeableness
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is a combination of really kind of being polite, following rules, and also being compassionate and
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kind. And this is something you see with narcissism as well. It's really core to narcissism and a lot of
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the more toxic traits, but reversed. So what we see with narcissism and psychopathy and other dark
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traits is high antagonism or low agreeableness. And the final trait in the big five is neuroticism,
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which sounds bad, but really neuroticism is a combination of anxiety, depression, some hostility.
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And that's what you see with vulnerable narcissists, a lot of neuroticism. So if you take those big five
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together and you want to understand grandiose narcissism, you take some antagonism, somebody who's
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sort of self-centered and mean and entitled, but you take that person say, and you're also really
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extroverted and driven and charming, and that's your grandiose narcissist. You take that same
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antagonism and maybe a little bit more suspiciousness and hostility because there's vulnerability and you
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make that person neurotic, anxious, insecure, and that's vulnerable narcissism. So that's kind of how
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you put it together with the big five traits. And you mentioned earlier that vulnerable narcissists
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are more likely to end up in therapy. Is it because of the neuroticism aspect of it?
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Absolutely. And when you talk to therapists, what happens is they say, yeah, you have a client come
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in and they have symptoms of, you know, I'm kind of depressed. Things aren't going my way. You know,
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the world doesn't seem fair and you go, oh, you're, you know, you seem like an anxious, depressed person
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and you dig in a little bit. And the person also says, well, I'm really smarter than everybody else.
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And I should be running the show. And a lot of other things that are hard to see in somebody
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who's depressed. So sometimes vulnerable narcissism is referred to as covert narcissism because it's
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narcissism that's really hard to see until you press. On the surface, it looks like somebody who's sort
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of anxious and, you know, George Costanz is the example, you know, we used to give in the old days
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or the comic book guy from the Simpsons. But somebody on the surface who seems kind of,
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you know, weak and neurotic, but inside really wants power and status.
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When someone goes to therapy and they present, say, as like a depressive, like how do clinicians
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diagnose, like, oh, you actually, this is narcissism. What does that look like for the
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diagnostics of narcissism? Is it pretty difficult to do?
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Yeah, it's, I want to be clear. I'm not a clinician. So this is just reading and talking to
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people. What seems to happen is it takes a while to dig up. You don't really notice it. And in
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different conversations, you start hitting triggers. So, oh, this is what makes you depressed. Why did
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you get depressed? Well, I was disrespected. Well, why were you disrespected? Well, people didn't pay
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attention to me. Did you do anything? Well, no, they should have noticed me.
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So an example of something like this would be in the, oh, the Elliott shootings in Santa Barbara,
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where he asks a girl out. She doesn't say anything back. And he goes, I was rejected by that girl. I'm
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going to take revenge. So it's a very vulnerable thing to do. Most of us, you know, you go, hey,
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go out with me. Somebody doesn't say anything. You go, well, they probably didn't hear me,
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you know? And, but if you're more vulnerable and insecure, you, you assume people are out to get
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you. They're disrespecting you, sliding you. And when a therapist starts seeing that kind of
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behavior, they go, okay, there's some ego involvement in this depression. It's not just,
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I'm a bad person. It's like, I'm a good person who's not getting the respect they deserve.
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If that made sense. Yeah. That makes sense. What about grandiose narcissism? I mean, I guess these,
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they're the opposite. They have like a thicker skin. They don't. Yes. Yes. Thicker skin.
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And they sometimes call them thick and thin skin narcissists. With grandiose narcissism,
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it's often not seen at first because you meet people who are really confident and extroverted
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and likable. And if you meet people like this in a social situation or in public, like in performance,
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your initial response is, this is a really confident person. I really like they're good person.
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And where you start seeing the grandiosity is over time. When there's options for that
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person to do something that's warm or loving, or, you know, trust, you know, you have a position
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where you have to trust them. And it turns out, well, they're not that trustworthy or really they
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don't, they don't care that much about me. They care more about themselves or they're not as
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interested in me as I am in them. So what you see over time is you see that lack of empathy,
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that self-centeredness, but it takes a little time. Often it takes a little time because you like
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the grandiosity at first. Do we know what causes narcissism? Like why are some people more
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narcissistic than others? Yes. And it's a, it's a combination. So with personality, what we see is
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a lot of us are genetics and I'm talking about 50%, maybe a little more as heritable in any of our
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traits. So it comes from our ancestry. Doesn't mean if your parents are narcissists, you're doomed to be a
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narcissist or anything, but there is that genetic sort of association. Parenting matters, but it
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doesn't matter as much as most people think. With grandiose narcissists, you see parents that said,
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hey, you're special, put them, put the kid on a pedestal. We're very permissive. And with vulnerable
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narcissists, you see the parenting that you see with a lot of, you know, more negative psychological
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outcomes. So you see parents who are more cold and abusive that are, you know, a little more,
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little traumatic, more traumatic for the kid. And the other piece with narcissism is what we call
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non-shared family environment in the research, but really it's just the random stuff that happens to
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you growing up. So you grow up and maybe one kid ends up, you know, with a bunch of really nice
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friends and a nice group and develops really warm and loving relationships. And another group ends up
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with a little more high status, competitive group of friends and becomes a little more
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self-promoting and self-centered just to fit in with the friend group. And that leads to more
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narcissism later on. So it's complex. There's no single path, but there are some things that we know
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lead to it. Well, you also, in the book, you mentioned culture can also have an influence as
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well. I think the comparison between Eastern and Western cultures where Western cultures tend to be
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more narcissistic compared to Eastern cultures. Oh, oh, for sure. There are cultural differences
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across cultures. So it's sort of that classic, you know, East and West difference. And you see that
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at the continent level, they even have data looking at East and West Germany, you know, before and after
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the breakup where you saw lower narcissism, East Germany, that was communist versus West Germany.
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Another thing you see culturally is the shift towards cities, smaller family sizes, more competitive
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workplaces. And we see that in China pretty clearly, but some data in the U.S. as well, that as
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societies become more urbanized, we have smaller families, less long-term trusting relationships,
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everybody's hustling to build a brand, to get attention, to fight their way through the economic
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system. There's just more pull for narcissism. And there's also differences across generations
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as well. I mean, a couple of years ago, actually more than a couple of years ago, I think it was
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a decade ago, you wrote a book with Gene Twinge, The Narcissism Epidemic, talking about the increase
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we're seeing in narcissism. Tell us about that. I mean, what is the state of narcissism? Is there,
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can we see a difference in narcissism from one generation to the next?
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Yes. And it's unfortunately, well, fortunately or not, it's more complicated. So Gene and I wrote
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The Narcissism Epidemic in 08, I think, or 09, is right before the Great Financial Crisis. And what
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we had was this, it was kind of the height of the Paris Hilton, Kim Kardashian, narcissistic,
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grandiose era. And we found real increases in narcissism in college students, you know, from the
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80s to then. And what happened since then is we had the Great Financial Crisis kick in,
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and the job market collapse. And we saw narcissism start to drop with a lot of young people.
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They just didn't, I mean, I think vulnerable narcissism's gone up. I don't have really good
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data on that. But the grandiose narcissism seems to have gone down because of the job market in large
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parts. And right now with the pandemic, it's really hard to know what's going on. We're seeing lots of
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change, you know, mental health decreases, lack of trust in society. So it's hard to know what's
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going on in this cultural stew. But in general, more individualistic societies, more low-trust
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societies, you're going to get more narcissism. I'm curious, as a researcher, how do you figure
00:17:27.940
that stuff out? Like, how do you figure out narcissism on a scale that large? Like, what do you-
00:17:32.780
Yeah, it's really challenging because it's how do you find data? So what we did was we would look at
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every single person who'd measured narcissism, we get the mean scores, and we collect those. And what
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we call a cross-temporal meta-analysis, which is a fancy way of saying is we're looking at all the
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studies across time, and we'd see if those means are increasing or decreasing. Ideally, what you have
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is you have these, you know, national data sets that have these data, but we just don't have that
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for narcissism. So we have to go and look at it. And then if you want to look at things like
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narcissism culturally, which is a little different question, you have to figure out what to look at.
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We'd look at things like, you know, what people are naming their children, you know, what are people
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buying? There's a lot of other things you can look at. Yeah, I've heard song lyrics is one thing you
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can look at, like the instances of I in song lyrics has gone up, and then the instances of you have
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gone down. Yeah, song lyrics, books, there's lots of things that have changed. And a lot of those in
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our society are in the direction of individualism. We're just in a, we're in a very individualistic
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society right now. Okay, so let's recap. I think it's, we did a good breakdown broadly of what
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narcissism is. It's a personality trait. Everyone is narcissistic to some extent or another. You might be
00:18:53.100
narcissistic in some instances, but not in others. There's two types of narcissism. There's the
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grandiose narcissism, which I think everyone is familiar with. And I think that's kind of the
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popular idea of what a narcissist is. But there's also that vulnerable narcissist where they think
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they're the center of the world, but they don't really do anything to promote themselves. But they
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just feel like people, like they're, they feel like the world is obligated to meet their needs and
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just know about it. And they get really upset when that doesn't happen. Would that be a fair
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summation? Yes, slighted. And that's that vulnerability piece. It's like, they're easily
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threatened because they, they, they had, they think the world is, they think the world owes
00:19:29.840
them something, but they haven't been out there fighting enough to have a thick skin. Okay. So
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that's a personality trait. Everyone can experience that to some extent or another, but then you
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mentioned earlier that there is a clinical diagnosis called narcissistic personality disorder.
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So when does narcissism tip over into a disorder and how do psychologists figure that out?
00:19:50.440
Yes. So personality is designed to be ideally sort of flexible. So I have one personality when I'm at
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work, maybe I have to be more directive. I have to be an authority. I'm in charge. I might have another
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personality when I'm with my kids. It's not totally different, but I'm going to, I'm going to, my,
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it's going to go up and down. I'm going to be flexible depending on my, my environment. Well,
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what happens with personality with some people is it can be, it can get sort of extreme and it can be
00:20:23.280
inflexible so that my narcissism, when I'm at work, it's like, Hey, let's just talk about me.
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When I'm with my wife, I'm like, yeah, I hear, I hear that, but let's talk about my day.
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When I'm with my kids, I'm like, you know what? I'd love to pick you up, honey, but I've got the golf
00:20:41.180
clubs in the back of the Mercedes and I just don't have room for you. And maybe you can just
00:20:45.280
take an Uber to the birthday party. And so what happens is your own ego, because it's so extreme
00:20:52.540
and it's not flexible enough, it starts to interfere with your life. So then what a clinical psychologist
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or psychiatrist has to do is say, well, is this really messing you up in a couple of different ways?
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And one of the ways narcissism really seems to affect people as relationships. So your narcissism,
00:21:12.580
you might feel good interpersonally. You might not be depressed, but your, your wife or your husband
00:21:17.760
might be suffering. Your kids might be suffering. Your, your employees might be suffering. So
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one issue is your relationships could be a problem. And so narcissism is implicated in a lot of divorce.
00:21:29.120
It could be that you're making poor decisions at work because you won't take feedback. So you think
00:21:34.500
you're so smart. People are saying you're making a mistake and you're like, no, I'm in charge here,
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or you want the opportunity for glory and you take risks. So it's destroying your work.
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So if a clinician says, you know, it's messing you up in a couple areas, it's extreme and inflexible.
00:21:48.680
You've been this way for a long time. It's not just, you know, some drug you're on. It's not a
00:21:54.280
it's not a brain tumor. It's a personality disorder and let's start to treat it. So that that's the
00:22:00.120
process. And that's tricky because with a lot of mental health diagnoses, like depression,
00:22:06.420
the cue is like, is this impairing your life? That's how it's like sadness is impairing your
00:22:10.860
life to like over a long period of time. But it sounds like a narcissism, it could be like the
00:22:15.340
narcissist life isn't being impaired, but other people around them, their, their life's miserable.
00:22:21.500
Yes. And, and it's has the other set of disorders that's somewhat similar are addictive
00:22:27.500
disorders, where you can have people with addictions and say, you know, it's sort of
00:22:31.420
working for me, but other people are suffering, but yeah, it's set up in a bad way in terms of
00:22:38.540
treatment seeking. And this is a challenge. So if I'm narcissistic and the people really suffering
00:22:43.560
from my narcissism or my kids, when I go into therapy and it gets challenging and the therapist
00:22:49.560
is like, or the psychiatrist is like, dude, let's start thinking about who you really are. I go,
00:22:53.800
you know what? I'm out of here. I don't want to do this. And so that is the challenge with,
00:22:58.260
with narcissism and psychotherapy is they just won't stick with it because they're not suffering
00:23:03.420
enough. Yeah. Or even just getting into therapy. Like, how do you, you've got a problem. Like,
00:23:07.700
no, I don't. Absolutely. I mean, that's part of that defensiveness. I'm not the problem.
00:23:13.000
You, everyone else is the problem. So it's hard to get people into therapy who are narcissistic.
00:23:17.980
It's hard to, it's hard to keep them in therapy because the nature of the disorder is the person
00:23:22.640
suffering is often not the narcissist or if they are, it's sort of, they're suffering and, you know,
00:23:27.780
it's a second order effects of their own egos. It's not the first order effects.
00:23:32.580
Gotcha. So, okay. And just to be clear, I think it's an important distinction. Narcissistic
00:23:35.560
personality disorder is a clinical diagnosis. Like you can't just accuse someone of narcissistic
00:23:41.600
personality disorder willy nilly. Like this is something that has to be probably diagnosed by an
00:23:46.000
expert. Yes, it should be diagnosed. And I don't, I don't go around labeling people with NPD. I,
00:23:51.660
you know, you, you, there's processes for doing this technically.
00:23:55.900
Gotcha. Yeah. I think that goes to, for any type of mental health issue, like ADHD, depression,
00:24:01.400
anxiety, you might, you might think you haven't, you'd always go find to make sure you do.
00:24:06.240
And especially in, you know, the challenge you, and you mentioned this earlier is a lot of these,
00:24:10.860
these disorders are also normal conditions. So if somebody says, dude, I'm really anxious. Well,
00:24:16.100
does that mean I'm anxious or does that mean I have generalized anxiety disorder, man? I'm scared.
00:24:21.560
I'm scared of the snakes. Am I, am I scared of snakes like a normal person? Or do I have a snake
00:24:25.980
phobia? So a lot of these conditions kind of ride a line between normal and, you know, psychiatric,
00:24:33.580
and it's not a very clear line in a lot of cases. We're going to take a quick break for your words
00:24:39.500
from our sponsors. And now back to the show. So the first part of the book, you describe narcissism,
00:24:46.660
then the rest of the book, you discuss kind of its effects on different aspects of our lives.
00:24:52.040
We mentioned relationships. That seems like narcissism has the biggest impact on relationships.
00:24:56.060
Let's dig deeper in there. What does the research say about narcissism and relationships?
00:25:01.500
Well, it's, it's complex in an interesting way. So what you find is that the effect of narcissism
00:25:09.080
and relationships is different at the early stages than in the committed stages.
00:25:13.420
So in early parts of relationships, let's say you're dating, typical American dating relationships
00:25:20.760
with the young people, people who are narcissistic are going to be attractive when you first meet
00:25:26.020
them. They're going to be likable. They're likable in 30 second, you know, movie clips. They're going
00:25:31.740
to seem confident and they're going to be very effective at dating. They're going to have more dates.
00:25:36.640
They're going to have more connections on social media. They're going to have, you know,
00:25:39.780
they're going to date more quickly. They get lots of things. So in the beginning of relationships,
00:25:44.420
narcissism is really good for starting relationships. And when people start relationships
00:25:48.640
with grandiose narcissists, they report that those relationships are kind of fun at first
00:25:53.320
because they're exciting. So what happens though, over time is that relationships,
00:25:59.800
and this isn't always the case, but often what people want is they want a more committed or
00:26:05.240
emotionally intimate relationship. And so there's a sort of a transition in relationships from,
00:26:11.480
hey, we're having fun. This is dating to, hey, let's get to know each other. Let's have something
00:26:15.320
more committed. Maybe let's talk about something more permanent. In that transition, narcissism falls
00:26:21.500
apart because what you see with narcissism is not so much an interest in committed or warm or
00:26:27.060
empathetic relationships, but instead you see the narcissist maybe being a little bit unfaithful,
00:26:32.880
being a little uncontrolled, a little bit controlling, being a little materialistic,
00:26:37.280
treating you like a prop or a trophy. You see a lot of negative behaviors come up over time,
00:26:41.840
sometimes abuse, sometimes violence. So the relationships often will start off really strong
00:26:48.480
with grandiose narcissists, but over time they tend to fall apart and they get really, really bad.
00:26:53.520
So that there's just a very interesting pattern. And what happens is people end up dating lots of
00:27:01.220
narcissists because of this, or some people do, and it can be really bad. So that's the short version,
00:27:06.860
medium short version. Yeah. That's interesting. On the grandiose narcissist, you also highlight
00:27:11.820
research that they typically tend to be more attractive physically because they invest more
00:27:17.360
in their physical attractiveness. They're going to buy nice clothes, work out, et cetera.
00:27:22.260
Yeah. That's a great point. There's some really interesting research where they did these studies
00:27:27.620
like, ah, these grandiose narcissists, and these men and women are more attractive. Why is it? And
00:27:33.540
one of my colleagues did a study where he brought people in and had them shave their beards,
00:27:38.980
take their makeup off, and just did just normal facial shots. You can't see any difference. It's just
00:27:43.980
people who are narcissistic, want to be attractive. They want to be attracted, people attracted to them,
00:27:51.060
and they'll put effort into it. And it's effective. Right. But the issue is later on,
00:27:56.020
the person in the relationship discovers, well, this person doesn't really think too much about me,
00:27:59.820
and this is not going to go anywhere. Right. If your job as the narcissist partner is to make the
00:28:04.740
narcissist look good, that can be exciting for a little while, but it gets boring very quickly.
00:28:09.460
What about vulnerable narcissists in relationship? What does that look like?
00:28:13.680
It's a different deal because vulnerable narcissists are not necessarily attractive. They're not really
00:28:18.800
attractive people as a rule because they're, well, again, a little neurotic, a little introverted.
00:28:24.760
It's not an attractive thing. What happens, and this is less research, so it's a little bit,
00:28:31.140
this is just from talking to people. As you start a relationship, sometimes it's a caregiving
00:28:35.760
relationship where I'm dating this person. They're a little weak. They're a little neurotic.
00:28:39.480
Maybe I'm taking care of them. And I assume once I take care of them, they will be more grateful and
00:28:46.720
loving to me. So I date somebody who's a vulnerable narcissist. I'm really nice to them. I go, well,
00:28:50.920
they're going to be less depressed pretty soon, and then we're going to be close. Well, once they're
00:28:54.600
less depressed, it turns out they're kind of a narcissistic jerk. So you get rid of the neuroticism,
00:29:00.000
but you haven't taken care of the disagreeableness, and now you have kind of a jerk as a partner.
00:29:04.860
Okay. So, yeah. So it sounds like narcissism in relationships, it could be good in the
00:29:11.620
It's not, yeah, it's not a good recipe. I said this once, I said, except on a summer fling,
00:29:18.020
and then it was a newspaper headline that said, you know, Dr. Campbell tells people to have flings
00:29:23.080
with narcissists. So I'm not saying that. I'm just saying life is complicated. If you're going to
00:29:28.440
have a relationship with a narcissist, make sure it's short-term and it's on summer, over summer.
00:29:33.040
What about narcissism and leadership? What does the research say there?
00:29:37.080
That's another really complicated area. And narcissism, again, grandiose narcissism seems
00:29:42.700
to really fit with leadership. And we see this in a lot of research now. We see that narcissists
00:29:50.520
are good at emerging as leaders, which means that, hey, if we have a group of 10 people,
00:29:57.380
the narcissist is more likely to become the leader. And this works at, you know, works in family
00:30:02.660
businesses. It works in companies. We just see the people who are more, it works in assessment
00:30:07.920
centers, you know, with smart people looking for leaders. People are grandiose, will gravitate
00:30:12.520
towards leadership because they want it and they seem confident. So you find narcissists emerge as
00:30:20.160
leaders. The challenge is, how are narcissists once they get there? And their narcissism is really a
00:30:28.360
double-edged sword. People who are narcissistic can do big, risky things. They tend to take public risks.
00:30:36.820
When those risks as leaders work and they can take credit for it, everyone thinks they're a hero.
00:30:42.600
And when those risks fail, they try to blame other people and they look really bad. And people say,
00:30:51.720
why were you so stupid to believe that Theranos woman? So it really depends on the outcome. But
00:30:58.000
what you see is this big risk-taking and it can go either way, but very volatile leadership typically
00:31:04.020
with more grandiose leaders. Now, we had Brad Owens on the podcast. He's a professor of business
00:31:10.800
ethics at BYU. And he's done a lot of research on narcissism and humility and leadership. And I
00:31:15.260
think he found the same thing. Narcissists tend to emerge as leaders faster, but in the long run,
00:31:21.080
they do poorly as leaders because of those, the grandiosity and whatnot.
00:31:26.240
Yes. The only, the exception to that is if they can, every once in a while, they'll just hit it out
00:31:32.140
of the park. So I can tell you a hundred stories of narcissists who were brought in and destroyed
00:31:37.320
everything and were then drummed out. And, but every once in a while, they can, they can just
00:31:44.020
get lucky. And then they just write books about it. I mean, there's a great, one of the great books
00:31:48.760
on Larry Ellison is called the, the, the difference between God and Larry Ellison is the title of the
00:31:56.580
book, something like that. And then the subtitle is, you know, God doesn't think he's Larry Ellison.
00:32:01.300
The CEO of Oracle should have mentioned that, but he's very narcissistic character and he's done
00:32:07.080
extremely well as a business person and doesn't seem like a very likable guy, but I bet I'd have
00:32:12.400
a great time hanging out with this, you know, collection of whatever he's going to show me.
00:32:17.040
So it can work either way. It's not always bad, but it can go really bad. And humility is something
00:32:23.900
I would rather have in later. And what is, what about vulnerable narcissism and leadership? Do they
00:32:28.820
typically emerge as leaders or no, they're just going to be kind of wallowing there? Like I would,
00:32:32.620
I should be the leader, but no one, no one recognizes me. Yes. You're a hundred percent right.
00:32:38.320
And, and when they do get into leadership, vulnerability is a very bad trait in a leader
00:32:44.300
because leaders who don't have thick skin will get to, you know, cause once you're a leader,
00:32:49.500
everyone's taking shots at you. It's just like being famous. It's just like, you know, anybody who puts
00:32:54.100
their head out there is going to have people taking shots at it. And vulnerable leaders who have
00:32:58.480
power, they can be real dangerous because when their ego gets wounded, they can, they can lash
00:33:03.640
out and thoughtless ways and hurt a lot of people. So I think vulnerability to leaders are a real
00:33:09.900
mistake. I can deal with, you know, the, the standard, you know, grandiose narcissist psychopaths
00:33:15.220
we have, but their vulnerability, they can be dangerous in unpredictable ways, not just predictable
00:33:20.220
ways. So I think a lot of us, we typically associate the increase in narcissism with social media.
00:33:25.320
That's kind of, it feels like that. Okay. This, we have this platform where it encourages
00:33:29.520
self-promotion. What does the research say about narcissism and social media?
00:33:34.220
It's, it's one of those things. It's a little bit complicated at first. I thought, well,
00:33:40.340
everybody gets on social media is going to become more narcissistic. And maybe that happened a little
00:33:45.260
bit, but it doesn't seem that way. What it seems to be are that people who are narcissistic or
00:33:51.440
grandiose do very well on social media. They have more friends on Facebook, more followers on
00:33:57.380
Twitter. They just tend to have bigger social media networks on all the accounts. So if you open up your
00:34:03.320
social media account, look at all your people you're following, you're going to see more narcissism
00:34:07.520
than really exists. And social media seems to be good at reinforcing narcissism. So people who are
00:34:15.040
narcissistic can use social media to get attention and that will make their narcissism
00:34:20.260
survive or inflate or whatever. So it's a way of maintaining narcissism, but it doesn't seem to be
00:34:27.980
making narcissists. It's in fact, it seems to make people a little bit depressed, but that's another
00:34:33.740
topic. It seems more, it's a tool for people who are narcissistic to self-promote and it works well for
00:34:40.480
them. Okay. So, so it's, it's social media self-selects for narcissists, basically. That's why it seems like
00:34:45.380
everyone's a narcissist. Okay. Yes. And I thought it was interesting. Some of the, the research being done
00:34:50.200
right now, it's, it's, again, it's kind of speculative right now, but it's interesting that
00:34:53.200
you can actually look at someone's social media postings and figure out if they're higher on
00:34:59.240
narcissism than others. Like the, the amount of selfies being taken is possibly a, a sign that
00:35:05.400
someone's narcissistic. Yeah, it's really, it's really interesting. So, you know, we started,
00:35:11.540
I started doing this with a student and maybe it's almost been 10 years ago. We were doing back in the
00:35:16.640
day was we'd look at student. This is when undergraduates had Facebook and no one else
00:35:21.020
had social media. And we'd look at their Facebook pages and code them. And we'd use that to predict
00:35:26.420
narcissism. We're like, yeah, we could do this pretty well. It's, it was very laborious and old
00:35:31.400
fashioned. And about three or four years ago, people started using more machine learning to start
00:35:38.580
scraping websites and using things like likes of products or other information on there to predict
00:35:44.340
personality. Some of this, you know, if you've heard about the Cambridge Analytica scandal,
00:35:49.720
that's what they were doing. And that turns out to work pretty well, but not great. So you can
00:35:55.760
detect narcissism, you know, maybe 0.2, 0.3 correlations from some sort of machine learning
00:36:01.740
would be my guess, but it's not perfect. And it's not a secret pathway into people's lives.
00:36:07.560
If that makes sense. It's not like a window into their soul.
00:36:10.720
No, yeah, that makes sense. And one of the things that came out of that research
00:36:14.940
is that narcissists, not only do they take more selfies, but they actually like when other people
00:36:21.200
take selfies and post selfies, which is interesting. Cause like, you know, when I see someone post a
00:36:24.960
selfie, it kind of makes me feel like I experienced some sort of like secondhand embarrassment. I'm like,
00:36:29.040
wow, that's why would you, but there's people who really are really into that. They're like,
00:36:33.920
No, I mean, that's where I love personality because people are just wired differently.
00:36:37.580
And when I would take selfies, I, it would, it would horrify me. I'm like, I can't,
00:36:42.460
I mean, who puts a picture of themselves? This is so wrong. It was just, it's just how I wasn't
00:36:47.720
raised that way. And I'm so, I'm sort of neurotic and I'm like, God, I look so horrible in this
00:36:52.420
picture. I couldn't, couldn't do it. People are narcissistic. It's pretty easy. It's like,
00:36:57.020
Hey, I look good. Let's look at everyone else. Look good. And you know, I'll look good alone.
00:37:01.740
I'll do more selfies with my own body. So it's more comfort in doing it and they're cool with it.
00:37:06.980
Yeah. So people are just different. Yeah. People are like, I, uh, I've think I've taken
00:37:10.800
one selfie, like where I've actually held the camera and like, and it made me, and I never
00:37:15.060
wanted to do it again. So if I have to take a picture, I hand the camera to someone else,
00:37:18.960
like, you take the picture. And, and, and it's funny whenever I see people take selfies in public,
00:37:24.040
I look away. It's like, like, like we're in like the gym, the locker room, like, okay,
00:37:29.120
this is some kind of weird private experience and I shouldn't be looking at it.
00:37:32.400
And that's just me. That's it's a year from a, from a different culture and you're wired a little
00:37:38.000
differently. And if you were from the modern, you know, digital culture and you were a little
00:37:42.120
narcissistic, you'd think like, God, I am so grateful to be born in the era where I could
00:37:47.040
take pictures of myself all the time. Imagine those poor, you know, those poor Gen X kids that
00:37:51.540
didn't even have cameras. Uh, so we, we talk about grandiose narcissism in social media. Do we know
00:37:56.860
how vulnerable narcissists use social media? We have data on it and it's a lot less data.
00:38:03.840
So it's not as clear. And what it looks like is there's a lot more struggle and insecurity sort of
00:38:11.100
like, you know, we were just talking about people are vulnerable. Don't feel as they want to put the
00:38:15.300
selfies out there. They want to get liked, but they don't feel really good about it. So they spend
00:38:20.500
more time waffling back and forth. And it's not necessarily a fun, a fun process. And you can talk
00:38:26.500
to some Instagram stars. I don't know, maybe you have that you look at their Instagram and you're
00:38:31.320
like, Oh my God, this person must be the most confident. They just knocked this shot off, just
00:38:35.700
hanging in Dubai. And when you talk to them, it turns out they spent a day doing that shot.
00:38:42.560
They, they didn't sleep for a day or two worried about how they look. So there's a lot of
00:38:46.780
vulnerability, but you don't pick it up in the pictures. Yeah. Those are some of my favorite
00:38:50.120
articles that come out where you have some journalist that goes into these like influencer houses where they
00:38:55.420
all live together and kind of see what it's like. And yeah, it's, it's a lot, it's a lot more going
00:39:00.500
on than you think a lot of anxiety and neuroticism and, and just being anxious about how things are
00:39:06.660
going to be received. And they spend a lot of time on this stuff. Yeah. I think that the real,
00:39:11.940
the real celebrity culture, and I was just up in a, I was just up doing a celebrity podcast last week
00:39:17.780
in LA. It was really fun, but that culture, there's a lot of anxiety about performance because it's so
00:39:23.700
competitive, you know, it's just so brutally competitive that it's not as fun as it looks.
00:39:29.660
And another related to this idea of narcissism and digital technology, narcissism can also help
00:39:35.040
explain the phenomenon of trolling. How can narcissism help, help us understand that?
00:39:40.260
Oh yeah. So trolling, you know, the idea on social media is just, you know, putting out bait to see if
00:39:46.560
you can get people to get upset or riled up about it. People looked at that with trolling and other
00:39:52.860
dark traits and the traits that really seem to predict trolling are narcissism, some psychopathy
00:39:58.100
and sadism, which is basically just, I like to, I enjoy watching people suffer. So there's some
00:40:04.760
narcissism and trolling, and there's also just some plain old meanness, but it's not a, it's not a,
00:40:10.860
it's not people, it's not fun love. It's not a loving thing. Loving people do. It's a, it's a little
00:40:17.660
bit darker. And is that situational? Like, does that only happen on social media or is this carry
00:40:23.580
over to other aspects of life? Because they are personality traits. These things generally will
00:40:28.320
carry across situations because they are traits, but they'll come out in different forms. And,
00:40:35.260
you know, somebody who's a great troll would be, you know, somebody like Elon Musk, who's, who
00:40:39.980
comes across as a, you know, narcissistic, but he's a, he comes across as also what we call a trickster
00:40:46.680
figure, you know, a guy who's kind of a joker or a trickster. And those figures are interesting ones
00:40:53.480
and that they're often very creative. So they, they, they can seem narcissistic, but they're also
00:40:58.960
kind of interesting and creative and not enough research on that type of troll.
00:41:04.760
So listening to you speak about narcissism, I think we typically focus on the downsides. We'll
00:41:10.880
talk about that here in a bit, but I mean, it does sound like there's some upsides to being
00:41:14.020
narcissistic on occasion in the realm of relationships. If you spend more time on how
00:41:19.060
you present yourself and you put yourself out there more, you're more likely to get in a
00:41:23.840
relationship or even like in the job hunt, right? You have to put yourself out there to, to be
00:41:28.760
considered for a promotion or a raise or something. So how can you use, get the benefits of
00:41:34.200
narcissism without the downsides? Yeah. I try to look at narcissism and I try to look at most
00:41:40.080
things as a trade-off because that's how nature is. If something was just always bad all the time,
00:41:45.680
we just wouldn't really have it so much. So most of our personality traits have some benefits at some
00:41:51.680
point and narcissism is no exception. And I think narcissism works really well in dating. It works
00:41:57.360
really well. Public speaking works really well on leadership works really well in self-promotion,
00:42:01.960
maybe marketing, maybe competition, you know, walking into a boxing match. So what you can do
00:42:08.140
is you say, well, let's look at the narcissist doing that. And maybe I can use some of that swagger,
00:42:13.940
but I'll just do it in limited domains. So maybe I'll have swagger when I walk into the boxing,
00:42:19.640
you know, boxing ring, but I'm not going to carry that home with my kids. Or maybe I'll have the
00:42:25.200
confidence when I walk on stage instead of going, I'm going to fail. I'm going to say, yeah,
00:42:29.200
I got this one and try to feel really positive about it and just see how it goes. So I think
00:42:35.220
there's a lot to learn from watching, especially the more grandiose, the more grandiose people and
00:42:40.620
how they can really succeed in life and imitating some of that stuff, but not, not starting to
00:42:46.540
believe your own hype because you're just not that big of a deal. So let's say someone's listening
00:42:51.180
to this and they're thinking, well, maybe I'm, maybe I'm more narcissistic than I need to be.
00:42:54.440
And it is affecting my relationships. We're not talking a narcissistic personality disorder.
00:42:59.160
We're just talking, you're higher in narcissism than you like, and you're seeing that it's
00:43:02.160
affecting your relationships. Is it possible to tamp that down?
00:43:06.800
Yes. I think one thing we've learned in, in personality science in the last 10 years,
00:43:12.420
I think very clearly is that personality can change and to change, you need to identify what it is
00:43:18.700
you want to change and then, and then make an effort over time. What I would suggest to people
00:43:24.500
is say, look, I'm a little narcissistic. I would say, what is it specifically that's really messing
00:43:29.620
you up? Is it, is it the way you treat your, you know, is the way you treat your, your relationship
00:43:35.040
partner? Is it something at work? Is the way you relate to people and figure out what that is and
00:43:41.120
say, look, I'm going to address that one specific behavior. You don't have to change your
00:43:44.500
whole personality. Don't just try to do one thing. So for one example I have, and I'm not
00:43:51.180
super narcissistic, but I'm really extroverted and I have a tendency to talk over people. I'll go to
00:43:56.900
conferences and I'll start talking. I'll get real excited and just drown people out. And so I go,
00:44:03.340
well, this is my tendency. I look a little bit self-centered because I am. So I'm going to really
00:44:08.200
just, every time I talk to people, I'm going to put in breaks. So I give them a chance to talk
00:44:13.140
and it's a practice. So my suggestion to people is if you find things like that, just go, Hey,
00:44:19.100
it's something I would rather not do so much. It's not benefiting me. What could I do to make
00:44:23.660
a little better, little simple thing like that? And this, this, how we broke things down with
00:44:28.320
narcissism, the difference between grandiose and vulnerable and the personality traits that are
00:44:33.200
involved in each one that can help you pinpoint what you need to work on. So if you're more of a
00:44:36.300
grandiose narcissist, you might need to tamp down the extraversion a bit. Let other people have the
00:44:42.300
limelight. If you're a vulnerable narcissist, I imagine the thing you got to tackle there is the
00:44:46.100
neuroticism or the anxiety. Yes. It's the neuroticism. How do you do that? You know,
00:44:50.440
exercise, meditation, yoga, you know, walks, SSRIs, you know, there's, there's things you do to try to
00:44:57.900
get rid of that anxiety or depression in your life that can be helpful that way. And then the,
00:45:03.760
then the other key piece is that antagonism. And that could be practice of, you know, compassion,
00:45:09.960
you know, there's compassion meditations you can do that, you know, treat everybody like they're
00:45:14.760
your mother in a past life. I mean, that's an old one, but, but there are different practices that
00:45:19.780
you can, you know, be nice to puppies, whatever it is, just find something and focus on that and see
00:45:25.560
if you can make some headway that way. Yeah. Focus on other people, not you. Yes. The key. Yeah.
00:45:31.040
And you gotta be careful of the meditation. I've seen research lately saying that certain types of
00:45:34.800
meditation can actually make you more narcissistic. That is really an interesting question because
00:45:40.920
we have some, some research in ayahuasca that we've been looking at too. And I, I think there's
00:45:46.180
a challenge in the meditation. It's the energy-based practices, which are kind of what I do. Some of the
00:45:52.620
more energy-based yoga practices that are associated with narcissism. What happens is people have an
00:45:58.840
enlightenment experience and they go, okay, I'm enlightened now. Well, I guess I'm a guru. I'm
00:46:02.780
going to go get some followers. So I don't think those practices are the best for grandiosity. I
00:46:09.820
think they're good for vulnerability and neuroticism, but for grandiosity, they can be a real mixed bag
00:46:15.740
and, you know, a lot of narcissistic gurus. Right. If you're grandiose, you want to do the loving
00:46:21.100
kindness or the compassion. Loving kindness would be what I would suggest. That's the prescription.
00:46:25.920
What about narcissistic personality disorder? I've read things that it's really hard to treat and
00:46:30.320
sometimes it seems like it's impossible to treat. Is that, is that true? It can be, but okay. So
00:46:36.440
we don't have the gold standard clinical trial because it's never been done. But if you look
00:46:44.440
across all the different clinical trials where they've looked at narcissism and these aren't always
00:46:49.520
perfect studies, what you find is that narcissists and narcissism can be changed. The big challenge is
00:46:56.800
keeping people in therapy and getting people to therapy. But if people stick with it, it seems to
00:47:05.160
be possible to change. So it's really a challenge of getting people in there and finding a therapist
00:47:12.000
who can deal with people who are narcissistic. And this is a challenge in finding a therapy that fits
00:47:16.620
the person. Okay. So we talked about reducing narcissism in yourself. How do you handle someone?
00:47:21.360
If you have someone in your life who's a narcissist, whether that's a spouse, a boss, a friend,
00:47:26.680
any tips there as you can keep maintaining the relationship?
00:47:30.580
It depends on how tied you are with the person. And one, I guess, no matter what the relationship is,
00:47:37.880
if you're dealing with somebody you think is really narcissistic, it's good to find some support,
00:47:42.040
find some other people that agree with you so that if you get in a conflict, the person can't,
00:47:47.640
I mean, they'd use the term gaslighting, but basically people who are narcissistic can make
00:47:52.740
you think you're crazy. So you get some social support around you, take notes about things,
00:47:58.020
start understanding the situation in a very stable and solid and secure way in case there's a conflict.
00:48:05.380
And then you have to deal with whatever conflict comes up. So it could be you have a narcissistic boss
00:48:10.380
that's stealing credit from you. And then you go, how do I handle this? Do I give them the credit and
00:48:15.640
then try to get them promoted out? Do I try to get some of the credit? Do I try to get another boss?
00:48:21.260
It just depends on what the situation is, but I'm like, get a support network first and get outside
00:48:29.080
help if you can. Yeah. Gotcha. Well, Keith, this has been a great conversation. Is there some place
00:48:34.180
people can go to learn more about the book and your work? Yeah. My website, wkeithcampbell.com.
00:48:39.340
It's not great. It's got some stuff. Book could be found anywhere. And I'm sometimes on Twitter
00:48:45.180
at wkeithcampbell. All right. Well, Keith Campbell, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.
00:48:53.320
My guest today was wkeithcampbell. He's the author of the book,
00:48:55.780
The New Science of Narcissism. It's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find
00:48:59.660
more information about his work at his website, wkeithcampbell.com. Also check out our show
00:49:03.680
notes at aom.is slash narcissism, where you find links to resources. We can delve deeper into this
00:49:07.800
topic. Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website
00:49:18.860
at artofmanliness.com, where you can find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles
00:49:22.400
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00:49:48.500
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