A number of readers sent me links to reports of a new study about the rising tide of Narcissism among the offspring of the baby boomers, who wrote some of the major chapters on Narcissism:
Study finds rising narcissism, self-centeredness among college students
Today’s college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society.
"We need to stop endlessly repeating 'You’re special' and having children repeat that back," said the study’s lead author, Professor Jean Twenge of San Diego State University. "Kids are self-centered enough already."
Twenge and her colleagues, in findings to be presented at a workshop Tuesday in San Diego on the generation gap, examined the responses of 16,475 college students nationwide who completed an evaluation called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory between 1982 and 2006.
Unfortunately, I was unable to find a link to the actual study, which may not have been published yet. Nonetheless, there are a number of important points that can be made about the study, based on the description of the study instrument, the reporting of the study, and the words of the authors.
The first point I would make is that by all indications, the study looked at the superficial colloquial understanding of narcissism, which is often seen as synonymous with exaggerated self-esteem (egotism) rather than the more complex structure that Psychoanalysts refer to as Narcissism. As a result the authors of the study get a good many things right but miss the opportunity to expand on the genesis of pathological Narcissism and its impact on the individual and the social milieu.
Dr. Sanity has done an exemplary job of placing the article and the study results into perspective. She correctly savages the pop psychology that has led to the plethora of self-help gurus, and reserves some special animus for misinterpretation and misapplication of Psychoanalytic principles in pedagogy, ie the self esteem movement:
NARCISSISM AND THE SELF-ESTEEM GURUS
Most people confuse "self-esteem" with what I will refer to as a "sense of self". It is the latter--not the former, that is so often screwed up in the angry, violent, grandiose, and generally narcissistic people in the world. If you have a healthy "Self", you are likely to have a healthy self-esteem--which is not the same at all as a high self-esteem.
The psychological defect that leads to so many problems is a defective or distorted sense of one's SELF. The excessive self-esteem you see in a bully comes from a distortion of reality that person has with regard to their self. It was once widely believed that low self-esteem was a cause of violence--and you see that idea reflected today in the platitudes and rationalizations of terrorism-- but in reality violent individuals, groups and nations think very well of themselves.
....
The pop-psychology that promulgated the widespread belief that if you nurture kid's self-esteem neglected to mention that if the sense of self was already damaged, all you managed to do was to create a narcissist; and it is simply a waste of time and money--as this article reports.
I would like to point out another problematic aspect of the disorders of self known as narcissism. One point often glossed over is that the Narcissist’s self esteem is actually quite fragile. Since it is based on an inflated sense of the self, ie it is not based on a realistic assessment of the self, the Narcissist needs constant affirmation by the environment that they are, indeed, the "special" person they have always been told they were. Such people have a noticeable lack of resiliency. When the Narcissist inevitably smacks up against an indifferent environment, as when the young person graduates college and enters the work force, reality intrudes in unmistakable fashion. Your boss does not consider you special unless you can actually do a good job. It is very easy to see how the Narcissist, who already tends to use projective defenses to avoid knowing of his own short comings, can very easily slip into a paranoid position with the real world.
"Since I know I am special, and have never really been challenged, when my boos tells me I have done a poor job, it can’t be true. ------> He must have something against me!"
Now, multiply that attitude to a much larger scale. Major societal problems arise when a large group of people with fragile self esteem and a poor sense of self collide with modern day tribalism, ie, identity politics. Then the problem becomes the system, or the man, or the ruling class, or the Jews, or Bush and the Rethuglicans, or racism; never does the person take responsibility for their own failures because to do so risks a psychological catastrophe. Suddenly, one’s always fragile self esteem, artificially buttressed all these years by a facile environment, crumbles. The result is devastating despair. Alternatively, reality can be denied and the despair defended against by externalizing the rage and directing it at those you believe now oppress you.
This dynamic can be applied to those who cry "racism" at every turn; it can describe the psychology of the Palestinians who have been taught they are special and held down by the "oppressive" Jews since 1948 and yet have failed so miserably in creating a functioning society; it appears wherever the toxicity of identity politics and aggrieved victims wield power.
The saddest aspect of this is that the "victims", whether individuals or societies that have a distorted sense of self, have no hope of ever changing their circumstances until they find a way to deal with reality and tolerate the painful work of acknowledging that the world does not necessarily see them as "special."
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