I happened to catch Jeffrey Kluger on the Jim Engster Show talking about his new book, The Narcissist Next Door: Understanding the Monster in Your Family, in Your Office, in Your Bed – in Your World. What a fascinating personality disorder! Kluger shared that its prevalence in society has increased 30% in the last 35 years which suggests knowing more about narcissism could be helpful.
Symptoms of narcissism include:
- grandiosity or self-importance
- need for admiration
- belief they are super special and unique
- lack of empathy
- extreme sense of entitlement
- envy – either envious of others or belief that others envy their ____ (beauty, talent, wealth, etc.)
Recent research on narcissism and Facebook use found that both men and women’s ratings of their profile pictures (physically attractive, cool, glamorous, fashionable) predicted their score on a narcissism questionnaire. The researchers described the profile pic as the mythical reflecting pool of Narcissus. I like that. Men scored higher on the narcissism measure overall but interestingly, only women’s status update frequency predicted narcissism. Women also changed their profile pics more often than men (on average every two months as opposed to every three months).
It’s early in the age of social media but I do believe it is a stage for the narcissists among us to show their stuff. Exactly where the line between normal behavior and narcissistic behavior should be drawn is yet to be determined.
I’ve written about narcissism previously wondering how it relates to authenticity and vulnerability.
What do you think about narcissim? Share your thoughts in the comment section.
My goal is to write 30 blog posts in 30 days the month of September.
#30in30
I’ve been a walker my whole life – walking to the Pak-a-Sak for a 10 cent Icee when I was a little kid, walking with my bestie discussing boys when I was in high school, walking in cities all over the world in my twenties, walking the hills in Athens and Atlanta, GA during grad school, and nowadays walking around my neighborhoods in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
Occasionally, someone asks me, “What about JoeBlow? He’s your competition, right?” I usually do know Joe as coaching is a small world but never really give competition much thought.
Regularly, I receive emails that start with an apology for the delayed response. Usually, it’s only a day or two, maybe a week after my previous e-mail. Not long enough in my book to be a problem or warrant an apology. Once when I was teaching, a student complained about my slow response. I looked at our email correspondence and saw that I had replied to him in less than 24 hours!