Narcissism is characterised by a grandiose sense of self-importance and a lack of empathy for others. Herald Illustration / Richard Dale
They’re arrogant, jealous, entitled - and make up around 5 per cent of our population. Is there a narcissist in your life? Jamie Morton reports.
“You’ve just described my ex.”
Victoria University psychologist Professor Marc Wilson has lost count of the number of times someone has told him this at the end of another lecture on narcissism.
If it’s not their ex, it’s their flatmate or boss.
It might be they have been quick to label someone from a workplace spat or a relationship turned sour.
But there’s always a small chance that person, beyond being a jerk, meets the clinician’s textbook definition of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).
After all, Wilson says, about 5 per cent of our population likely tick all the right boxes.
They’re arrogant, jealous and entitled. They crave attention, lack empathy and have a grandiose view of themselves.
They enjoy playing games and exploiting others.
Like the mythological Narcissus, who fatally fell in love with his own reflection, they have a pathological degree of self-regard.
As Wilson puts it: “They move through the world believing they’re the shizz.”
Because of that self-absorption – and their need to centre activities around themselves – they can be intolerable.
“Their relationships with others tend to be superficial, one-sided, and instrumental – narcissists use others to get what they want.”
If that sounds a little familiar, it might be you know someone with narcissistic traits.
To have NPD, however, they’d have to lie at the extreme end of a spectrum on which most of us sit near the middle.
“Many folks will have more than the average bucketful, but still sit below the most narcissistic 5 per cent.”
Wilson also stresses that NPD isn’t a mental illness, like psychosis, but rather one of 10 recognised disorders of our personality “architecture”.
“If we think of people like [Dunedin convicted murderer] Clayton Weatherston, this is important because someone diagnosed with a personality disorder still appreciates the difference between right and wrong.”
Another common misconception is that narcissists are happy people.
“Narcissism is not just the same thing as very high self-esteem, which means having a positive view of oneself,” he said.
“In fact, narcissists do have a very positive view of themselves, but they worry that they’re not as cool as they think they are.
“Just imagine wondering why people don’t appreciate you as much as you think you deserve ... it’s pretty distressing.”
Wilson is describing the “vulnerable narcissist”: someone who’s hyper-sensitive to rejection and extremely self-conscious, but sometimes uses their claimed long-suffering to get attention.
The other main camp is the “grandiose” or “overt” narcissist: think of someone with a bone-deep sense of superiority.
“Grandiose narcissism is probably what most people know,” said Samantha Stronge, who’s led one of the few studies into narcissism in New Zealand.
“Someone with a very positive view of themselves, who will talk themselves up, and wants others to admire them.”
Both types are willing to use people to get what they want: and it’s hardly surprising that researchers have found long-term relationships with narcissists often don’t last.
At first, their confidence and assertiveness might make them attractive, but as their true colours emerge, their partner is left neglected, manipulated, stressed and depressed, with low self-worth.
Narcissists are also more likely to cheat – and they don’t appear to have problems with “mate-poaching” people in relationships themselves.
If that all sounds unpleasant enough, Wilson said, narcissism can often come as part of the “dark triad” of psychological traits – the other two being Machiavellianism and psychopathy.
“So, people who are narcissistic are also notably more likely to also to be callous, remorseless and manipulative.”
It’s hard not to think that we live in an era of increasing narcissism.
We make Facebook stories out of brunch dates and we post gym selfies on Instagram, which more than two million of us now use.
A large chunk of our population pick the manufactured drama of Married at First Sight Australia over the 6pm news, and top TikTok influencers command the kind of reach most journalists could only dream of.
Come November, Americans could well re-elect Donald Trump, who’s described himself as a “very stable genius” and “the chosen one”.
Column inches are still regularly devoted rapper Kanye West, who famously compared himself to God, or West’s reality TV star ex-wife Kim Kardashian.
Unlike some psychoanalysts, Wilson and most other experts think it trivial and unethical to diagnose from a distance.
“What I can say is that people like Kim Kardashian and Donald Trump appear to embody at least some of the characteristics of narcissism – but it’s also the case that they are their own brand,” he said.
“That means it’s impossible to say if it’s appearance, or bone-deep.”
Incidentally, when the US therapist Dr Drew Pinsky invited celebrities onto his radio show to be assessed for NPD, he found reality TV stars tended to score highest.
“In New Zealand, my own research with reality TV aspirants doesn’t show that they’re any more narcissistic than the general population, which suggests there’s something about cultural context.”
Although research is limited, studies suggest “vulnerable” narcissism might be more common in collectivistic cultures, while the reverse is true for grandiose forms.
So far as Stronge is aware, there doesn’t appear to be a big difference in narcissism between New Zealand and other Western nations.
For those wondering whether our old-fashioned Kiwi humility is still intact, her University of Auckland research encouragingly found just one in 10 of us holds traits that could be considered narcissistic.
Nearly 40 per cent of those surveyed had healthy levels of self-esteem and low levels of entitlement.
Is that picture changing, as popular culture suggests?
Some international researchers certainly think so.
One US study found millennials and Zoomers believed themselves to be more entitled and self-obsessed than any other living generation, yet still didn’t like the stereotype.
When Wilson and colleagues looked themselves a decade ago, they found narcissism appeared to be more common in single men and most apparent around the age of 19 and 20, before fading with age.
Stronge’s work, on the contrary, showed millennials didn’t actually feel any more entitled than previous generations did at the same age.
Instead, it found a slight increase for people aged 65 and over – particularly women – which was perhaps the “la dolce vita” effect, or retired people feeling they deserved to reap the benefits of their hard work.
“My most objective evaluation of the literature is that for every piece of research saying narcissism is increasing over time, there is another piece of research saying it isn’t,” she said.
“At the very least, we can say it’s not a settled question.”
Jamie Morton is a specialist in science and environmental reporting. He joined the Herald in 2011 and writes about everything from conservation and climate change to natural hazards and new technology.
She has outlived her one-year life expectancy and focuses on the positive: 'I am living'