Debunking Therapy Influencers’ Claims about Narcissism
So today we’re going to talk about narcissism, a very popular topic on the internet and we’re going to look into what’s total BS and what’s real. I’m Spencer Greenberg. I’m the founder of clearthinking.org. We run lots of studies about human psychology and right now we’re actually running a study related to narcissism. So I thought it’d be a good time to do some narcissism debunking. This video is from Med Circle. They have 1.7 million subscribers. >> Have you ever seen a couple each of them
Were a narcissist and they both admitted that they were both narcissists? >> Absolutely. Did those relationships succeed? >> No. And I’ll tell you what happens is that there’s a point at which I I will tell you there’s a number of people I’ve worked with who’ve admitted straight up I’m a narcissist. I >> So this is really interesting because a lot of people think that narcissists won’t admit that they’re narcissists, but actually the way to think about this
Is not that someone wouldn’t admit they’re a narcissist. What I think is more accurate is that narcissists either won’t admit they’re narcissists because they believe it’s bad to be a narcissist or they will admit they’re a narcissist, but they think that’s actually a good thing. And there’s actually this really interesting study on what they call the sins, the single item narcissism scale. And what this does is it asks a single question essentially, are you a narcissist? And it provides a little bit
Of a definition. And they find that actually this single question does a pretty good job at picking out who’s a narcissist. It’s not perfect. There are definitely narcissists that are in denial about it, but some narcissists totally believe it. They just don’t think it’s a bad thing. This is a YouTube short about how to spot a narcissist with almost 200,000 views. There is this one facial feature that sets narcissist apart from non-narcissist. In other words, if you
Would simply know how to recognize this feature, you would never fall for them again. Quite surprisingly, it is a narcissist’s eyebrows. Grandio narcissist’s eyebrows. Their eyebrows are quite thick. >> He’s absolutely correct. This has been scientifically proven. No, of course not. This is complete I can’t believe this kind of gets 10,000 likes. This is ridiculous. You cannot tell someone’s personality based on minor facial features. That just is total nonsense. A stronger indication of narcissism would actually be if people
Modify their appearance. However, even that is going to be a very weak indicator because lots of people modify their appearance for all kinds of reasons. But the idea that thick eyebrows means you’re a narcissist, just complete This next video is from a super popular YouTuber, Healthy Gamer GG. He talks a lot about psychology and topics like that. This video has a million views, and it’s about what makes a narcissist. >> What causes narcissists to become narcissists? Were they born that way or
Exposed to trauma that caused them to become that way? A narcissist forms from conditional love. See, when we unconditionally love someone, we teach that person that there is something within you that is good, that is independent of how you act, how you look, how you behave. When you are not unconditionally loved and when you are conditionally loved really really really hard or not so much the love but when the conditions are huge. When your whole life is about conditional responses then
What happens is someone becomes very attuned to things outside of them. They become focused on the outside focused on the outside and that leads to narcissism. >> So this is just one theory of what makes narcissist. Uh, you know, I get when you’re educating, you want to state something boldly and make it interesting, but when you’re taking a really speculative theory among many speculative theories and just saying, well, this is what makes a narcissist. I
Think it’s unfortunate. Um, I think it’s a big exaggeration to say this is what makes a narcissist. Possibly it’s a contributing factor. Um, but there are a lot of different theories out there. One thing we do know is that narcissism is at least partly genetic. And you can see this from studies of personality disorders, for example. So here’s a paper looking at whether cluster B personality disorders are heritable. So this includes narcissistic personality disorder but also antisocial, borderline
And histrionic. So what do they find in this case? When they try to look at the heritability based on interview or self-report alone, they find heritability is around.3 or point 4 for these cluster B personality disorders. But when they actually combine the methods, they look at both self-report and interviews together, they find stronger heritabilities around 71 for narcissistic personality disorder. But the reality is there are a lot of debates going on in the field of genetics about how to do these
Measurements and there is variability depending on the method. So we can say there is a genetic component but it’s not really clear how strong it is. It could be as strong as you know 71 heritability that’s a possibility or it could be lower it could be.3.2 to something like that. But we can’t just say that it’s purely our environment. There are a lot of different theories about what creates narcissism, and I don’t think we really know with
Confidence which theory might be true. This next video is from SPS Insight. They have 240,000 subscribers, and in this case, they’re interviewing a narcissist. >> What is it about your personality that fits with that diagnosis? >> What I find that fits into the diagnosis is the constant need for admiration. >> Check. That’s absolutely one of the key aspects of being a narcissist. >> The constant state of boredom. But the constant boredom leads me to do really
Risky things. Like I’ve just done such risky things that I don’t even understand how I’m alive. >> That’s interesting because it’s not actually as characteristic of narcissistic personality disorder. It’s more characteristic of antisocial personality disorder or informally what people call a sociopath or psychopath. And so, you know, it’s a bit of a surprise to me that she pointed at that as evidence that she’s a narcissist. >> Like, I will do all of these things. Like, I will do beauty pageantss. I’ve
Done Miss Universe, Miss World, now I’m doing Miss Earth. And that gives me such a great sense of validation. And I feel like that kind of boosts my internal self-esteem. But again, if my external sources run out, I cannot regulate it myself and I will go into a very, very dark place. So, this is a really interesting point. A lot of people think that narcissists are confident. They feel really good about themselves. And that’s because they’ll often, not
Always, but often engage in very arrogant bragging type behaviors that make them seem like they think that they’re amazing person. But the reality is their ego can deflate very rapidly and it’s incredibly painful for them when it does. So, they’re trying to protect their ego and they love building their ego up and getting admiration and attention, but also it deeply hurts them when their ego is threatened or challenged. So unlike someone who has stable self-confidence, that person
Doesn’t need external validation. They don’t need to brag about themselves or get everyone to think they’re amazing. Whereas a narcissist, they have to constantly get this external validation to feel good. But at the same time, if they get rejected or fail, feel like they’re not as good as someone else, they can feel terrible, and their ego can completely collapse. >> I will do really reckless, impulsive things like spend all my money or even substances sometimes. And you’ve also
Been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. >> Ah, there it is. Okay. So, she was also diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. That could help explain the impulsiveness. I think it’s worth digging into this a little bit because antisocial personality disorder or being a sociopath is often confused with narcissistic personality disorder or being a narcissist. So, we made this ven diagram to help understand the difference between narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder. I’ll talk about the relationship between them in a
Second. Like how connected are they? But first, let’s look at their differences. So, the way this ven diagram works is that the red section shows commonalities. So, things that you tend to find in both narcissists and sociopaths. The orange on the left shows things that are you tend to find in narcissists but are less likely to be found in sociopaths. Things on the right and blue are more likely among sociopaths, less likely among narcissists. So on the left we see
Things like desire to be the center of attention, uh intense and broad need for admiration. They constantly compare themselves to others. On the flip side, if we look at the the blue section about sociopaths, we see they tend to be extremely transactional in interpersonal relationships. They tend to lack guilt or shame. And this is a big one that narcissists actually can feel deep shame. You know, when their ego is threatened and they have this ego collapse, they can feel like they’re
Really bad and horrible. where sociopaths are more likely to lack shame and to be indifference towards how they’re perceived socially, except in so far as it helps them get what they want. We also see a lot of overlap though between being a sociopath and being a narcissist, like being self-centered, being manipulative, having reduced empathy, uh maybe enjoying power over others and a sense of superiority. So, there is a lot in common. In fact, you see that scores on tests for being a
Narcissist show really high correlations with scores on tests for being a sociopath. And I can show you that right now on personalitymap.io, our platform. So here we see a really high correlation. In fact, in one study, we see a 63 correlation between scores on this test for being a narcissist and scores on this test for being a sociopath. So having traits of one disorder does make you more likely to have traits of the other disorder. This
Next video is from Psych to Go. They have almost 13 million subscribers. In this video, they list signs of being a narcissist. So let’s take a look at some of those signs. >> Have you ever commented on something someone said and they lashed out at you? Maybe the reaction was more hostile than expected. They think they’re superior to others around them and believe themselves to be infallible. >> So, this is definitely in the right direction. It is true that narcissists
Tend to take criticism poorly. Basically, if their ego is threatened, it makes them feel really, really bad and often makes them lash out. But, I will say I have known a number of narcissists in my life and some of them will admit to some flaws they have and sometimes say that they’ve made a mistake, which is interesting. And I think what’s going on here is they’re often willing to accept that they have flaws and say that they made mistakes
Around things that are not extremely detrimental to their ego. So for example, suppose a narcissist really puts a lot of value in themselves as a chef and they think they’re an incredible chef and they’re better than other people, etc. They may take a criticism of food they made really, badly and blow up in anger. But on the other hand, suppose a narcissist thinks that cooking is really silly and it’s not something to be proud of and
They really don’t put any of their ego in it. They may not take it very harshly because it doesn’t actually really affect their ego. They may just laugh it off like, “Oh yeah, we’re cooking stupid anyway.” So I think the key thing here is not whether it’s a criticism or admitting mistake per se, but they’re very bad at dealing with anything that it serves as a blow to their ego, no matter what that is. and criticism and
Mistakes often are blows to the ego which can make them go into a denial or lash out. >> They exploit others without guilt or shame. >> It certainly is the case that narcissists have a tendency to exploit other people. But the without guilt or shame bit is weird. That’s actually more characteristic of antisocial personality disorder or sociopathy, not of narcissistic personality disorder. In fact, often narcissists when their ego is crushed, they might feel really bad about themselves. they might end up in a
Shame spiral where they feel like, you know, society rejects them and they’re worthless and so on. So, I think this is mixing messages a little bit. It’s actually really common that people confuse narcissistic traits with antisocial traits. And it’s important to distinguish them because while they are correlated, um, there’s some really important differences that are worth noting. And if you’re dealing with someone in your life and you think they could be a narcissist, it’s actually important to differentiate is this
Person more of a narcissist or more of a sociopath? Because the way that you deal with them and the way you relate to them might actually vary quite a bit depending on which they are. And the more you understand the way their own mind works, the better you will be able to deal with them if you’re forced to or if you decide to. This next video is a TEDex talk by Anne Barnes on managing a narcissist and it has a million views.
In our unthical world, we are surrounded by these selfish, thirsty beings like our parched Greek friend. They are addicted to feeling special. Admiration is everything. >> That is truly a critical aspect of narcissism. This intense desire for admiration and attention that build up the ego with the ideal form of it for many narcissists being some kind of worship. >> You all know one. You might even be sitting beside one. >> You probably do know a narcissist. And
Not just, oh, I dated a narcissist kind of narcissist where that accusation gets thrown around a lot, but someone with narcissistic personality disorder. It’s estimated to be maybe two, three, four, something like that percentage of the population. So frequent enough that unless you’re a bit of a hermit, almost certainly you have met people with narcissistic personality disorder, there’s a decent chance you might even have one in your life in some way. >> Well, one thing we know for sure is that
Their numbers are increasing. Hm. Well, actually, that’s not something we know for sure. If anything, there’s actually quite a bit of evidence against that. Now, in her defense, there were some studies that suggested that maybe narcissism was on the rise. But let’s look at some data on this. This paper is called a farewell to the narcissism epidemic. What the researchers did is they looked at about a thousand different studies related to narcissism and they tried to tease out is it
Increasing, is it decreasing, is it staying the same, what’s going on? A lot of people think it’s rising. Maybe in part because some early studies suggested that, but also maybe in part because of social media. We see narcissistic people putting themselves in the spotlight all the time. And that can give us a sense that we live in a world that’s becoming increasingly narcissistic. But the reality is there’s a selection bias. Narcissistic people are putting themselves in the spotlight
And social media is simply empowering that. So what does the data actually say? Well, here we have it from the researchers. So data collection years were meaningfully negatively associated with narcissism scores in virtually all analyses. So that says that actually if anything narcissism might be going down a little bit. We’re not talking about huge effects here. So it’s probably somewhere between flat and going down according to these researchers. Here’s their conclusion. Here we provide evidence for negative cross-temporal
Changes in narcissism from 1982 to 2023 globally. Thus contrasting the idea of a narcissism epidemic having taken place at any point during the past four decades. Another really interesting reason why people think that narcissism can be increasing is that younger people tend to be more narcissistic than older people. We can actually see this on our platform personality map where we give you free access to over a million correlations about humans. So let’s put in narcissistic personality disorder and
Let’s see how it’s connected to age. So here we go. We’re going to use this measure of narcissistic personality disorder called the PD. And now we’re going to take a look at how the narcissistic personality score is linked to age. And indeed we see here in this red bar a negative correlation with age. Not super strong but because of this effect where younger people tend to be a bit more narcissistic. It can lead people to think that narcissism is
Increasing because they look back at the younger generation say look at how narcissistic they are. But that doesn’t mean it’s increasing because those people might actually have lower narcissism as they age. This next video is from Lee Leblah. She’s a therapist and trauma coach and this video has 400,000 views. If your partner shows hum humility and wants to learn from you or from others, they listen to feedback without overreacting and they’re willing to accept that maybe
You know a thing or two based on your life experiences, then they’re not likely a narcissist. >> So, this is an interesting one and I think as a general rule, this is probably right, but I do want to make a caveat. Narcissists are often experts in getting admiration because it’s a thing that they deeply care about and they’ve been aiming for for much of their life. And because of that, their behaviors can actually be quite confusing to us
Because they’re doing something to get admiration. In other words, to get you to like them and admire them. And so, they might say words like, “Oh, I really respect your opinion.” Or, you know, you’re completely right, etc. But it’s to get you to admire them. So just be careful about that that you have to look deeper at not just the words they say but also their behavior subsequently and the underlying motivations for those words. There was a really interesting
Study done where they had people introduce themselves to a class and they videotaped it and they measured the narcissism of those people and then they looked at a very interesting question which is that do people like the narcissist more having heard them introduce themselves and the answer was yes. the more narcissistic they were, the more they tended to like that person. So, they’re really using many different strategies to get you to like them. That’s why you really have to look
Beneath these surface level things. Look at their longer term behavior. Look at their intentions and so on. If you want to understand narcissism better, check out my interview with a nameless narcissist where I ask him a lot of questions about what is it really like to be a narcissist and why do you do the things that you do or you can check out the other video on our channel where we dig into misconceptions about narcissism. If you found this
Interesting, I’d really appreciate it if you subscribe. And if you want to explore correlations with narcissism and over a million other correlations, check out our platform, personalitymap.io. You can use it for free.