Narcissism - Page 6 of 6

Why The Typical Antisocial, Narcissistic, Depressive TV Detective Would in Reality Be a Terrible Judge of Character

You can learn to be a better judge of character, but not from depressive TV detectives.

There’s a certain type of TV hero who can see straight into the souls of the people he meets. Often these characters are also antisocial, narcissistic, disagreeable and depressive.

He or she could be a detective, a doctor or even a psychologist, but whatever their profession they always have a special gift for reading other people. One or two glances and the target is pegged.

If only life were that simple and we could quickly work out what other people are like. After all being able to accurately judge another person’s personality helps you predict how they will behave. Just think how much easier many areas of our lives would be: choosing a partner, or an employee for instance.

Is this person really as hard-working as they appear or are they just pretending to be conscientious? Is that person really sociable or are they going to keep refusing to go to parties? And so on…

How successful we are in making judgements about other people depends on some things over which we have little control. For a start it helps a little if you’re a woman. In addition, some people are just easier to read than others. The most difficult people to read are the emotionally unstable, introverted, and those lacking in conscientiousness.

It’s also hard to make good judgements without the right information. Obviously sometimes we just don’t know enough about another person or we don’t see them behaving in ways that gives some insight into their personality. For example it’s difficult to tell much about people when they’re in situations which strongly constrain behaviour, like being at a funeral or in the audience at a comedy gig.

People are often like actors in a play: you think they’re revealing themselves but really they’re hiding behind a character or the situation.

Relaxed, approachable, agreeable

Despite these difficulties, there are ways in which we can become better judges of character. A hint comes from research on which types of people are naturally better at judging others. It turns out that good judges of personality tend to be content with life, relaxed, approachable, agreeable and unconcerned with power and definitely not narcissistic. This description seems to rule out many an anxious, depressive TV hero.

For example, one study found that …

“…a videotape of getting-acquainted conversations among three people showed that good judges of personality talked about positive topics, made eye contact, expressed warmth, and seemed to enjoy themselves (Letzring, 2008). In an interesting follow-up study, videotapes of these conversations were shown to unacquainted observers who were asked to judge the personalities of the participants. If a conversation included at least one person who was a good judge, the unacquainted observers made more accurate judgments of all the participants!” (from: Funder, 2012)

This suggests that to successfully judge personality we need to give people the chance to express themselves. The softly, softly approach is most likely to work. If people feel relaxed and comfortable then they are more likely to show their true natures.

So if you want to see into people’s souls, forget about the antisocial Sherlock Holmes or the highly anxious Adrian Monk. Much better to operate with the charm and lightness of touch associated with Hercule Poirot or the apparently bumbling Columbo.

Image credit: Fat Les

The Problem With Narcissistic Leaders

Narcissistic leaders reduce information sharing in groups, leading to poor task performance.

Narcissistic leaders are everywhere. Just think of Steve Jobs, Nicolas Sarkozy or Bill Clinton.

Normally we don’t share narcissists’ self-inflated opinions of themselves, but for leadership it’s different. Narcissists know how to radiate all the qualities of a good leader: they have high self-esteem, they are confident and they display authority. Research has shown they seem to automatically take over leaderless groups (Brunell et al., 2008).

But how does a narcissistic leader affect group performance? That’s the question Nevicka et al. (2011) ask in a new study published in Psychological Science.

One job of a leader is to help the members of a group communicate with each other. If information is flowing between group members, then better decisions can be made. So, what do narcissists do to information flow amongst group members?

What Nevicka et al.’s study found was that narcissistic leaders actually reduced information sharing among groups, which led to worse group performance.

Crucially, though, this wasn’t the perception of the group. The groups thought the narcissists were doing a good job, when actually they weren’t (as measured by task performance). This perception is probably dynamic:

“It is possible that over time, group members’ positive impressions of narcissistic leaders decrease. Indeed, previous research has shown that although people’s impressions of narcissists are positive at first, they decline over time (Paulhus, 1998).”

But by then we’re stuck with them.

Image credit: Marquette LaForest

Why We Love Narcissists (At First)

Paradoxically we initially like narcissists more because of their exploitative, entitled behaviour — but it doesn’t last long.

Paradoxically we initially like narcissists more because of their exploitative, entitled behaviour—but it doesn’t last long.

Despite being self-absorbed, arrogant, entitled and exploitative, narcissists are also fascinating.

And not just from a clinical perspective; the research finds that we are strangely drawn to their self-centred personalities, their dominance and their hostility, their sensitivity and their despair, at least for a while.

Continue reading “Why We Love Narcissists (At First)”

Brian Blackwell and Narcissistic Personality Disorder

This week the teenager who received a life sentence for murdering his parents, turned media attention to a little known psychiatric diagnosis called narcissistic personality disorder. One of the most shocking things about the case seems to be that Blackwell had no trace of a ‘troubled background’, and the media were left searching for reasons for an unreasonable act.

In The Times Minette Marin wondered whether Blackwell was at the mercy of his genes. Ultimately this is a question of free will – do we really have the power to make our own decisions or do we simply carry out the bidding of our genes and environment?

It’s easy and very common to set up this ‘either’, ‘or’ question, despite the fact it doesn’t help work out what is going on here. A more useful thought is to imagine a sliding scale of free will, where perhaps some people have more free will than others.

Along similar lines, The Observer discussed how parents may feel they have little control over how their children turn out. This, however, is something that psychologists have recognised already – finding that it is a child’s peers who have the largest effect on personality development.

The Telegraph pointed out that narcissistic personality disorder is more of an American construct than a British one – along with the suggestion everyone is narcissistic to a certain extent.

This point brings out the most important problem with so-called personality disorders and their diagnosis. The categories are often fairly arbitrary, culturally defined and not widely agreed upon. Personality disorders are sliding scales, not on or off categories, and many of the categories themselves have very fuzzy boundaries.

In addition, most of the personality disorders recognised by psychiatrists in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders show high levels of comorbidity. In other words if you’re diagnosed with one, then you’re likely to be diagnosed with others as well. It all comes down to the convenience of giving someone a label.

Bear that in mind as you read BBC News’ description of narcissistic personality disorder.
BBC News