The Narcissist Test: How to spot outsized egos ... and the surprising things we can learn from them

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Rethinking Narcissism (#ulink_82af1921-d7e8-5192-b653-d9548189f19a)

Old Assumptions, New Ideas

The silent killer of all great men and women of achievement—particularly men, I don’t know why, maybe it’s the testosterone—I think it’s narcissism. Even more than hubris. And for women, too. Narcissism is the killer.

—BEN AFFLECK

Narcissism. The word has soared to such dizzying heights of fame that Narcissus himself would flush with pride. Scan a newspaper or magazine, watch the nightly news or daily talk shows, eavesdrop on commuters on their cellphones, gossip with your next-door neighbor, and the word pops up again and again. Everyone’s using it: average citizens, actors, social critics, therapists, a US Supreme Court justice, even the pope. Add in that we’re allegedly in the midst of a “narcissism epidemic,” and it’s easy to see why the term has become ubiquitous. Nothing gets people talking like a disease on the rise, especially if, as Ben Affleck seems to worry, the condition is terminal.

But what does narcissism mean exactly? For a word that gets hurled about with such frequency and fear, its definition seems alarmingly vague. Colloquially, it’s become little more than a popular insult, referring to an excessive sense of self—self-admiration, self-centeredness, selfishness, and self-importance. The press is apt to slap the description on any celebrity or politician whose publicity stunts or selfie habits have spiraled out of control.

But is that all narcissism is? Vanity? Attention-seeking? In psychological circles the meaning is no less confusing. Narcissism can either be an obnoxious yet common personality trait or a rare and dangerous mental health disorder. Take your pick. But do it soon, because there’s a strong sentiment among mental health researchers that it shouldn’t be considered an illness at all.

As slippery and amorphous as all these views seem to be, they all share a single assumption: narcissism is wholly destructive.

Too bad it’s wrong.

Narcissism can be harmful, true, and the Web is rife with articles and blogs from people who’ve suffered at the hands of extremely narcissistic lovers, spouses, parents, siblings, friends, and colleagues. Their stories are as heartbreaking as they are frightening. But that’s just a small part of narcissism, not the whole picture. And until all the pieces are in place, we have little hope of understanding how and why narcissism becomes destructive, let alone protecting ourselves when it does.

Today, in contrast, a surprising new view has begun to emerge, one that points to all the ways narcissism seems to help us, too. It even offers some hope for change when our loved ones, just like Narcissus, are in danger of disappearing into themselves forever.

Narcissism is more than a stubborn character flaw or a severe mental illness or a rapidly spreading cultural disease, transmitted by social media. It makes no more sense to assume it’s a problem than it would if we were speaking of heart rate, body temperature, or blood pressure. Because what it is, in fact, is a normal, pervasive human tendency: the drive to feel special.

Indeed, for the past twenty-five years, psychologists have compiled massive amounts of evidence that most people seem convinced they’re better than almost everyone else on the planet. This wealth of research can only lead us to one inevitable conclusion: the desire to feel special isn’t a state of mind reserved for arrogant jerks or sociopaths.

Consider, for example, the findings from a research tool called the “How I See Myself Scale,” a widely used questionnaire devised to measure “self-enhancement” (an unrealistically positive self-image). People who fill out the scale are asked to rank themselves on various traits, including warmth, humor, insecurity, and aggressiveness (“Do you think you’re average or in the top 25 percent, 15 percent, or 10 percent?”). In study after study in country after country, the vast majority of participants report having more admirable qualities and fewer repugnant ones than most of their peers. After reviewing decades of findings, University of Washington psychologist Jonathan Brown has concluded, “Instead of viewing themselves as average and common, most people think of themselves as exceptional [emphasis added] and unique.” This pervasive phenomenon has been dubbed “the better than average effect.”

Lest you fear that these results are evidence of a global social plague, the truth is a slightly outsized ego has its benefits. In fact, numerous studies have found that people who see themselves as better than average are happier, more sociable, and often more physically healthy than their humbler peers. The swagger in their step is associated with a host of positive qualities, including creativity, leadership, and high self-esteem, which can propel success at work. Their rosy self-image imbues them with confidence and helps them endure hardship, even after devastating failure or horrific loss.

Bosnian War survivors provide a dramatic example. Psychologists and social workers who evaluated a group of survivors for depression, interpersonal difficulties, and other “psychological problems” found that those who considered themselves better than average were in better shape than those who had a more realistic view of themselves. A similar pattern emerged among survivors of 9/11. Feeling special seems to help survivors of tragedy face the future with less fear and greater hope.

The converse appears to be true as well: people who don’t feel special often suffer higher rates of depression and anxiety; they’re also less likely to admire their partners. It’s not that their view of the world is wrong; very often it’s more accurate compared to people who think highly of themselves. But they sacrifice their happiness for that realism; they see themselves, their partners, and the world itself, in slightly dimmer light. Researchers call this the “sadder but wiser effect.”

It’s ironic in a way, the reverse of what we’ve been taught about narcissism. It’s not bad, but good to feel a little better than our fellow human beings, to feel special. In fact, we may need to. Where the trouble lies—whether narcissism hurts or helps, is healthy or unhealthy—depends entirely on the degree to which we feel special.

Narcissism, it turns out, exists on a spectrum. In moderation, it can, by inspiring our imagination and sparking a passion for life, open up our experience and expand our sense of our own potential. It can even deepen our love for family, friends, and partners. By far, the most powerful predictor of success in romantic relationships is our tendency to view our partners as better than they actually are. I call this “feeling special by association.”

Psychologists Benjamin Le of Haverford College and Natalie Dove of Eastern Michigan University recently reviewed more than 100 studies involving nearly 40,000 people in romantic relationships and found that whether a couple stayed together beyond a few weeks or months depended most strongly not on partners having winning personalities, robust self-esteem, or feelings of closeness, but on one or both people holding positive illusions—that is, they viewed their partners as smarter, more talented, and more beautiful than they were by objective standards. Believing that we’re holding hands with the most amazing person in the room makes us feel special, too.

But while moderate narcissism can enhance love, too much can diminish or even destroy it. When people grow dependent on feeling special, they become grandiose and arrogant. They stop thinking that their partners are the best or most important people in the room because they need to claim that distinction for themselves. And they lose the capacity to see the world from any point of view other than their own. These are the true narcissists, and at their worst, they also display two other traits of a so-called “dark triad”: a complete lack of remorse and a penchant for manipulation.

Surprisingly, too little narcissism can be harmful as well. Remember Echo? She’s the part of the myth we usually forget. She has no voice of her own. She’s self-abnegating, nearly invisible. The less people feel special, the more self-effacing they become until, at last, they have so little sense of self they feel worthless and impotent. I call these people echoists.

Danger, then, lurks toward the ends of the narcissism spectrum. Only in the middle, where the need to stand out from 7 billion other humans doesn’t blind us to the needs and feelings of others, lies health and happiness.

Another notion that we’ve mistakenly become wedded to is that our degree of narcissism is fixed throughout our lifetime. The fact is even healthy narcissism typically waxes and wanes, subsides and erupts, depending on our life circumstances and our age. When we’re sick, for example, we normally move up the spectrum; we’ll feel more deserving of others’ time and care, even more entitled to it, than our healthier peers and family members. Similarly at work, when we feel the need to be recognized, admired, and appreciated—say when we’re gunning for promotion—our narcissism spikes. In such instances, our hopes for the future ride on standing out from the herd. There are also specific life stages during which we need to see ourselves as special, such as pregnancy and adolescence; and others that move us toward Echo’s end of the continuum, such as caring for a newborn or deferring our dreams to help support a partner’s career. Both of these circumstances demand that we scale back our need to be in the spotlight.

But these peaks and valleys generally don’t last forever. The crisis or transition passes and the drive to feel special returns to a healthy level. If we’ve moved closer to Echo’s end of the spectrum, we find our voice again. And even if we’ve won the work promotion and quietly think we’re better than our colleagues, the need to prove that to ourselves—and the world—isn’t nearly as pressing. If it is, we’re no longer in healthy territory.

Another common—and wrong—assumption is that damaging narcissists are always easy to spot. Yes, the loud, vain, self-aggrandizing ones who daily pop on our TV screens and stream through social media certainly are. They stick out like sore thumbs—which is probably a good thing; the truth is you’ll find more narcissists in your life than echoists, and they’ll be more of a concern (narcissists inflict damage on others, while echoists primarily hurt themselves). But not all narcissists advertise themselves so brazenly—some aren’t even especially flashy or outgoing. And that makes recognizing them a lot harder.

There are also lower-profile subtle narcissists who are more difficult to detect, more common, and more likely to wreak havoc in our lives. They’re the people we see every day: they’re our lovers, spouses, friends, and bosses. Their unhealthy narcissism is often masked by their manner; they’re often quiet, charming, capable of warmth, and even occasional empathy. Their signs are harder to spot—but they’re still there. And if you’re familiar with them, you can tease out the signals, including a tendency to flee emotions. In Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo) we’ll take a closer look at the signs that may be red flags, to help you evaluate your relationship with a subtle narcissist.

The idea that the person you sleep with or work beside might be a narcissist is shocking and depressing. Even more depressing is recalling the accepted wisdom that narcissism is a fixed personality trait or character flaw that never improves. But here, too, thinking has begun to shift. Many extreme narcissists do seem to be stuck (thankfully they’re rare, only an estimated 1 percent to 3 percent of the US population). But some, milder narcissists may be able to change. Stripped down to its basic action, narcissism is a learned response, that is, a habit and, like any habit, it gets stronger or weaker depending on circumstances.

Narcissists bury normal emotions like fear, sadness, loneliness, and shame because they’re afraid they’ll be rejected for having them; the greater their fear, the more they shield themselves with the belief that they’re special. Unhealthy narcissism isn’t an easy habit to break, but people can become healthier by learning to accept and share the emotions they usually hide. And their loved ones can help them shift to the healthy center of the spectrum by opening up in the exact same way.

Just like most things in life, healthy narcissism boils down to striking the right balance. At the heart of narcissism lies an ancient conundrum: how much should we love ourselves and how much should we love others? The Judaic sage and scholar Hillel the Elder summarized the dilemma this way: “If I am not for myself, who am I? And if I am only for myself, then what am I?” To remain healthy and happy, we all need a certain amount of investment in ourselves. We need a voice, a presence of our own, to make an impact on the world and people around us or else, like Echo, we eventually become nothing at all.

We all sail between the Scylla of enervating self-denial and Charybdis of soul-killing self-importance. That’s what narcissism is really all about—and you’ll learn how to safely navigate the passage as we go along. But first, we have to untangle a mystery. If feeling special can be good for us, how on earth did we end up so obsessed with the idea that it’s bad? Why are we so focused on the dangers of narcissism?

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Confusion and Controversy (#ulink_4c8fbfff-9e49-55a9-afbc-d1ae4a6b8297)

How Narcissism Became a Dirty Word and We Found an Epidemic

Many years ago, a close friend of mine, Tara, called me about an incident with her father and her two-year-old daughter, Nina. They’d been out for a stroll in the park when Nina suddenly became unglued, screaming and wailing to go home. Tara did what she could, but Nina remained inconsolable. After about half an hour, Tara announced, “We have to go, I’m sorry.” Her father shot her a stern look, warning: “If you leave every time she pitches a fit, she’ll think the world revolves around her!” Tara, fuming, fired back. “Yes. Yes, she will. And I think that’s a good thing! Don’t you?”

On the surface, this father-daughter quarrel was a generational battle over how to raise a child. But at a deeper level, their argument reflects two radically different views of human nature. Tara’s dad seems to believe people are easily corruptible, requiring constant reining in to avoid becoming hopelessly self-centered, while Tara thinks we’re all made of sturdier stuff and actually benefit from a little self-absorption now and then. The first position inevitably adopts a rather dim view of humanity, the latter a more optimistic one.

Without realizing it, Tara and her father had squared off in one of the oldest debates in history, one that’s central to the confusion surrounding narcissism today.

The Birth of Narcissism

Long before the word narcissism had been coined, philosophers fought just as fiercely as Tara and her father over the place of the self in our moral priorities.

In 350 BC, Aristotle posed a question—“Who should the good man love more? Himself, or others?”—and answered it: “The good man is particularly selfish.” In India two centuries earlier, the Buddha had spread the opposite view: The self is an illusion, a trick our minds play on us to make us think we matter. Buddhism suggested that this illusory self should never be our primary focus. Four centuries after Aristotle, Christian teachings added a negative fillip: making too much of oneself constitutes the sin of pride (and a quick path to hell). Excesses of the self underlie other sins—sloth, greed, gluttony, and envy—as well.

Down through the centuries, the debate raged, engaging philosophers from Thomas Hobbes (self-love is part of brutish human nature) to Adam Smith (self-interest benefits society, aka “greed is good”). It wasn’t until the end of the 19th century, however, that the debate entered into the circles of medicine and psychology and the word narcissism first appeared. In 1898 pioneering British sexologist Havelock Ellis described patients who’d literally fallen in love with themselves, sprinkling their bodies with kisses from their own lips and masturbating to excess, as suffering from a “Narcissus-like” ailment. One year later, a German doctor, Paul Näcke, writing about similar “sexual perversions,” coined the catchier term narcissism. But it was the founding father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, who in 1914 made the word famous in a groundbreaking paper: On Narcissism: An Introduction. He liberated the term from its sexual connotations (unusual for him), describing narcissism, instead, as a necessary developmental stage of childhood.

As infants, Freud wrote, we’re convinced the world originates in us, at least all the exciting parts of it. We literally fall in love with ourselves, giddy with all the fascinating and sexy things we seem capable of. He called this stage “primary narcissism,” and felt it wasn’t just healthy, but also crucial to our capacity to form meaningful, close relationships. Our passion for ourselves as infants gives us the energy to reach out to others. We have to overestimate our own importance in the universe before we can see anyone else as important.

But Freud didn’t know quite what to make of narcissism beyond infancy. Was it good or bad for adults? On the one hand, he felt that narcissism and love were closely linked; lovers often raise each other on a pedestal above the rest of humanity. He also pointed to charismatic leaders and innovators as proof that individuals who feel special can bring tremendous good to the world. But he was quick to condemn adult narcissism as well. If we don’t let go of the childhood fascination with ourselves, he cautioned, it can lead to vanity (in his view found chiefly in women) and to serious mental illness, severing us from reality and turning us into delusional megalomaniacs. Freud’s dual views on adult narcissism generated enormous confusion and set the stage for a crackling duel nearly fifty years later between two giants in mental health: Heinz Kohut and Otto Kernberg.

Both men were born in Vienna to Jewish families and both trained as psychoanalysts. But they came of age under vastly different circumstances. Kohut, born in 1913, knew a Vienna full of hope and prosperity, brimming with rich artistic tradition and teeming with intellectual fervor. The advent of Hitler and the Third Reich changed all that. Soon after the annexation of Austria in 1938, Kohut fled his beloved city for England and then America, where he settled in 1940. Born in 1928, fifteen years after Kohut, Kernberg grew up in a grim and ominous Vienna in the shadow of encroaching Nazism. When he was 10 years old, he and his family fled to Chile, where Kernberg spent the next twenty years, far away from the home he’d once known; he moved to the United States in 1959. The two men’s contrasting experiences seem to have colored their views of human nature. Darkness pervades Kernberg’s view, while hope suffuses Kohut’s.

The Rise of Healthy Narcissism

As a young psychoanalyst, Heinz Kohut, like Freud, quickly earned a reputation for brilliance as a clinician, researcher, and teacher/lecturer. (He was renowned for his ability to commit entire therapy session transcripts to memory and to deliver compelling talks without a single note to prompt him.) Throughout most of his career, he remained one of Freud’s staunchest defenders. But in the 1970s, he split from the orthodox Freudian community to found an entirely new school of thought, Self Psychology, devoted to understanding how people develop a healthy (or unhealthy) self-image.

Kohut believed that Freud had stumbled by placing sex and aggression at the center of human experience. It’s not our baser instincts that drive us, Kohut argued; rather, it’s our need to develop a solid sense of self. And for that, he said, we don’t just need other people; we need narcissism. Freud had all but elevated self-reliance to the level of virtue. We should be fully autonomous as adults, declared the master, demanding neither approval nor admiration. But where Freud saw narcissism as a mark of immaturity, an infantile dependency to be outgrown, Kohut saw it as vital to well-being throughout life. Even as adults, we need to depend on others from time to time—to look up to them, to enjoy their admiration, to turn to them for comfort and satisfaction.

Young children only feel like they matter—only feel like they exist—when their parents make them feel special. Parents who pay attention to their children’s inner lives—their hopes and dreams, their sadness and fears, and most of all their need for admiration—provide the “mirroring” necessary for the child to develop a healthy sense of self. But young children also need to idolize their parents. Seeing their mother and father as perfect helps them weather the storms every fledgling self goes through as we face life’s inevitable disappointments. I’m awesome anyway, you can tell yourself when bullied at school or flunking math, because my parents think so. And my parents are perfect, so they should know.

Kohut believed that children gradually learn that nothing—and no one—can be perfect and so their need for self-perfection eventually gives way to a more level-headed self-image. As they witness the ways healthy adults handle their own flaws and limitations, they begin coping more pragmatically, without the constant need for fantasies of greatness or perfection. At the end of their journey, they acquire healthy narcissism: genuine pride, self-worth, the capacity to dream, empathize, admire and be admired. This, Kohut said, is how any of us develops a sturdy sense of self.