Narcissism, an Insecure Self Concept
I Corinthians 2,3
I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power,so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
Romans 12:3
For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.
Narcissism through the lens of performative self-elevation
Author: Pascal Wallisch, a clinical associate professor in both New York University’s Department of Psychology and Center for Data Science
Narcissism is driven by insecurity, and not an inflated sense of self.
Narcissism Characteristics:
Symptom #1: Lacking Empathy
The vast majority of us are able to understand how others are feeling. Then we will generally act accordingly, reassuring people and offering sympathy if they are sad.. Even if you are having a terrible day, the narcissist is unlikely to sympathise, they may not even understand why you are sad at all.
Symptom #2: Conversation Hogger
You can’t get a word in edgewise
Symptom #3: Self-Importance
The narcissist will often feel as though they are the most important person in the room
Symptom #4: Rule Breaking
Narcissists tend to think that they are above ‘normal’ people and this includes the rules that others are expected to adhere to. This includes social rules such as queuing and waiting for your turn as the narcissist seems to think such rules are in place only for other people to abide by.
Symptom #5: Strives For Perfection
The narcissist needs everything to be perfect, all of the time. They place heavy expectations of perfection on themselves.
More specifically, the results suggest that narcissism is better understood as a compensatory adaptation to overcome and cover up low self-worth.
Helping the Narcissist
It is important that we look at this person as a person with a high degree or level of fear.
Coping with the Narcissistic person
Get everything in writing. If you are given verbal instructions at work, ask for them to be emailed to you. ...
Avoid a fight. ...
Realize it's not personal. ...
Don't give personal information or opinions to the narcissist. ...
Have a witness. ...
Avoid contact. ...
Know your legal rights.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder DSM-IV Criteria
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
A. A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:
A. Significant impairments in personality functioning manifest by: 1. Impairments in self functioning (a or b):
a. Identity: Excessive reference to others for self-definition and self-esteem regulation; exaggerated self-appraisal may be inflated or deflated, or vacillate between extremes; emotional regulation mirrors fluctuations in self-esteem.
b. Self-direction: Goal-setting is based on gaining approval from others; personal standards are unreasonably high in order to see oneself as exceptional, or too low based on a sense of entitlement; often unaware of own motivations.
AND
Requires excessive admiration.
Impairments in interpersonal functioning (a or b):
a. Empathy: Impaired ability to recognize or identify with the
feelings and needs of others; excessively attuned to reactions of others, but only if perceived as relevant to self; over- or underestimate of own effect on others.
b. Intimacy: Relationships largely superficial and exist to serve self-esteem regulation; mutuality constrained by little genuine interest in others‟ experiences and predominance of a need for personal gain
B. Pathological personality traits in the following domain: 1. Antagonism, characterized by:
DSM-IV and DSM-5 Criteria for the Personality Disorders (trauma).
Narcissism Driven by Insecurity, Not Grandiose Sense of Self, New Psychology Research Shows
From NYU.edu, May 26, 2021
Narcissism is driven by insecurity, and not an inflated sense of self, finds a new study, which offers a more detailed understanding of this long-examined phenomenon and may also explain what motivates the self-focused nature of social media activity.
Narcissism is driven by insecurity, and not an inflated sense of self, finds a new study by a team of psychology researchers. Its research, which offers a more detailed understanding of this long-examined phenomenon, may also explain what motivates the self-focused nature of social media activity.
“For a long time, it was unclear why narcissists engage in unpleasant behaviors, such as self-congratulation, as it actually makes others think less of them,” explains Pascal Wallisch, a clinical associate professor in both New York University’s Department of Psychology and Center for Data Science and the senior author of the paper, which appears in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. “This has become quite prevalent in the age of social media—a behavior that’s been coined ‘flexing’.
“Our work reveals that these narcissists are not grandiose, but rather insecure, and this is how they seem to cope with their insecurities.”
“More specifically, the results suggest that narcissism is better understood as a compensatory adaptation to overcome and cover up low self-worth,” adds Mary Kowalchyk, the paper’s lead author and an NYU graduate student at the time of the study. “Narcissists are insecure, and they cope with these insecurities by flexing. This makes others like them less in the long run, thus further aggravating their insecurities, which then leads to a vicious cycle of flexing behaviors.”
The survey’s nearly 300 participants—approximately 60 percent female and 40 percent male—had a median age of 20 and answered 151 questions via computer.
The researchers examined Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), conceptualized as excessive self-love and consisting of two subtypes, known as grandiose and vulnerable narcissism. A related affliction, psychopathy, is also characterized by a grandiose sense of self. They sought to refine the understanding of how these conditions relate.
To do so, they designed a novel measure, called PRISN (Performative Refinement to soothe Insecurities about SophisticatioN), which produced FLEX (perFormative seLf-Elevation indeX). FLEX captures insecurity-driven self-conceptualizations that are manifested as impression management, leading to self-elevating tendencies.
The PRISN scale includes commonly used measures to investigate social desirability (“No matter who I am talking to I am a good listener”), self-esteem (“On the whole, I am satisfied with myself”), and psychopathy (“I tend to lack remorse”). FLEX was shown to be made up of four components: impression management (“I am likely to show off if I get the chance”), the need for social validation (“It matters that I am seen at important events''), self-elevation (“I have exquisite taste”), and social dominance (“I like knowing more than other people”).
Overall, the results showed high correlations between FLEX and narcissism—but not with psychopathy. For example, the need for social validation (a FLEX metric) correlated with the reported tendency to engage in performative self-elevation (a characteristic of vulnerable narcissism). By contrast, measures of psychopathy, such as elevated levels of self-esteem, showed low correlation levels with vulnerable narcissism, implying a lack of insecurity. These findings suggest that genuine narcissists are insecure and are best described by the vulnerable narcissism subtype, whereas grandiose narcissism might be better understood as a manifestation of psychopathy.
The paper’s other authors were Helena Palmieri, an NYU psychology doctoral student at the time of the study, and Elena Conte, an NYU psychology undergraduate student.
Narcissistic people aren’t just full of themselves – new research finds they’re more likely to be aggressive and violent
From theconversation.com
The big idea
We recently reviewed 437 studies of narcissism and aggression involving a total of over 123,000 participants and found narcissism is related to a 21% increase in aggression and an 18% increase in violence.
Narcissism is defined as “entitled self-importance.” The term narcissism comes from the mythical Greek character Narcissus, who fell in love with his own image reflected in still water. Aggression is defined as any behavior intended to harm another person who does not want to be harmed, whereas violence is defined as aggression that involves extreme physical harm such as injury or death.
Our review found that individuals high in narcissism are especially aggressive when provoked, but are also aggressive when they aren’t provoked. Study participants with high levels of narcissism showed high levels of physical aggression, verbal aggression, spreading gossip, bullying others and even displacing aggression against innocent bystanders. They attacked in both a hotheaded and coldblooded manner. Narcissism was related to aggression in males and females of all ages from both Western and Eastern countries.
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People who think they are superior seem to have no qualms about attacking others whom they regard as inferior.
Why it matters
Research shows everyone has some level of narcissism, but some people have higher levels than others. The higher the level of narcissism, the higher the level of aggression.
People high in narcissism tend to be bad relationship partners, and they also tend to discriminate against others and to be low in empathy.
Unfortunately, narcissism is on the rise, and social media might be a contributing factor. Recent research found people who posted large numbers of selfies on social media developed a 25% rise in narcissistic traits over a four-month period. A 2019 survey by the smartphone company Honor found that 85% of people are taking more pictures of themselves than ever before. In recent years, social media has largely evolved from keeping in touch with others to flaunting for attention.
What other research is being done
One very important line of work investigates how people become narcissistic in the first place. For example, one study found that when parents overvalue, overestimate and overpraise their child’s qualities, their child tends to become more narcissistic over time. Such parents think their child is more special and entitled than other children. This study also found that if parents want their child to have healthy self-esteem instead of unhealthy narcissism, they should give unconditional warmth and love to their child.
Our review looked at the link between narcissism and aggression at the individual level. But the link also exists at the group level. Research has found that “collective narcissism” – or “my group is superior to your group” – is related to intergroup aggression, especially when one’s in-group (“us”) is threatened by an out-group (“them”).
How we do our work
Our study, called a meta-analytic review, combined data from multiple studies investigating the same topic to develop a conclusion that is statistically stronger because of the increased number of participants. A meta-analytic review can reveal patterns that aren’t obvious in any one study. It is like looking at the entire forest rather than at the individual trees.