Narcissistic personality disorder

Narcissus by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) entails behaviors and attitudes that are designed to preserve a self-image of perfection, entitlement, and superiority.

According the Cleveland Clinic:

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Experts aren’t sure how common NPD is. According to research data, between 0.5% and 5% of people in the U.S. may have it. Between 50% and 75% of cases affect men and people assigned male at birth (AMAB). However, many people hide narcissistic beliefs or behaviors (informally known as “covert narcissism”). Because of that, it’s hard to estimate how many people truly have NPD.

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NPD often goes undiagnosed because many people with the condition are reluctant they have issues with narcissism because they think that their problems associated with the condition are all about everyone else and not about them Due to what they they perceive as insults to self-esteem, it is often difficult for NPD patients to accept and follow through with treatment.

Narcissistic personality disorder symptoms

People with narcissistic personality disorder are often envious of other people or believe that others are envious of them.

Narcissistic personality symptoms are:

• Sense of self-importance
• Preoccupation with power, beauty, brilliance or success or the perfect mate
• Sense of entitlement
• Can only be around people who are important/special
• Interpersonally exploitative for their own gain
• Arrogant
• Lack empathy
• Must be admired. Requires constant, excessive admiration.
• Fragile self-esteem
• Frequently suffers from self-doubt, self-criticism or emptiness
• Preoccupation with knowing what other people think of them
• Fishes for the compliments of others
• Envious of other people or believe that others are envious of them
• Expect to be seen and recognized as superior even without achievements
• Make their achievements and talents seem bigger than they actually are
• Are critical of others and look down on others that they feel are not important
• Demand special favors and expect others to do what they want without questioning them
• Low frustration tolerance

Splitting and narcissistic personality disorder

See also: Splitting (psychology)

Splitting is a psychological defense mechanism that causes individuals to engage in the extreme binary thinking of black-and-white thinking, all-or-nothing thinking and thinking in extremes.

It occurs commonly in people with narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder.

Narcissistic supply

See also: Narcissistic supply

The 2017 journal article The Moderating Effect of Psychological Contract Violation on the Relationship between Narcissism and Outcomes: An Application of Trait Activation Theory published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology notes:

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To maintain unrealistically high levels of self-esteem, narcissists tend to provide self-ratings of their own intelligence, creativity, competence, and leadership ability that are more favorable than others’ ratings of those same characteristics (John and Robins, 1994; Campbell et al., 2004; Judge et al., 2006). As a result, narcissists have an intense desire to have their superiority reaffirmed through admiration that serves to protect and preserve their grandiose self-images (Chatterjee and Hambrick, 2006). Information that bolsters self-esteem, referred to as “narcissistic supply” (Kernberg, 1975) can be self-generated through exhibitionism or by viewing others less favorably (Bogart et al., 2004). However, some narcissistic supply must derive from the affirmation, applause, and adulation of others (Wallace and Baumeister, 2002). The need to maintain sufficient “narcissistic supply” has important effects on the behavior of narcissists. Many of the behavioral tendencies of narcissists are an attempt to inflate and maintain their own (overly) favorable self-evaluations (Westen, 1990). As a result, narcissists engage in behaviors such as bragging (Hogan et al., 1990), derogating others (DiMaggio et al., 2002; Bogart et al., 2004), reacting to ego threats with hostility and aggression (Baumeister et al., 1996; Bushman and Baumeister, 1998; Rhodewalt and Morf, 1998; Rhodewalt et al., 1998), making internal attributions for success and external attributions for failure (John and Robins, 1994), and overestimating future outcomes and performance, even in the face of disconfirming feedback (Vazire and Funder, 2006).

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Matthew Boland, PhD, descibes narcissistic supply thusly:

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Narcissistic supply is the driving force behind many narcissistic behaviors. Recognizing the signs and patterns can help you set boundaries, get support, and care for your well-being. If you know someone with narcissistic personality traits or narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), you may be familiar with some of the ways they attempt to maintain a sense of superiority. It may be through: a constant need for validation lack of empathy manipulation other controlling behaviors At the heart of narcissistic behavior is narcissistic supply, a term that refers to the emotional sustenance narcissists seek to maintain their self-esteem and self-worth.

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PsycheCentral indicates:

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Narcissists employ various tactics to obtain the supply they desire, says Dr. Ryan Sultan, teaching psychiatrist at Columbia University in New York. “Some narcissists resort to aggressive behaviors, while others use charm and charisma to elicit admiration,” he notes. “The specific methods used can vary widely among individuals with narcissistic traits.” Other common tactics include: manipulation emotional coercion feigned affection control or dominance over others intimidation negative attention excessive admiration notoriety

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Narcissistic collapse

See also: Narcissistic collapse

According to Cynthia Vinney, PhD:

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Narcissistic collapse happens when a person with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) becomes unable to uphold their grandiose, confident image due to a perceived fatal blow to their reputation. This leads to a breakdown which manifests as angry outbursts, irritable or defensive behavior, and verbal or physical aggression. Internally the person with NPD feels a loss of sense of self along with perceived rejection and abandonment. It can result in harm to the person with NPD and those around them.

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PsychCentral.com notes:

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Narcissistic collapse isn’t a permanent occurrence once it happens. Typically, the emotional pain will decrease and the person may return to feeling their usual. In popular culture, people with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) are often portrayed as self-assured, confident individuals who care nothing about others. In reality, people with NPD are complex emotional beings like everyone else. They live with a mental health condition that has formal symptoms like grandiosity, low empathy, and the constant need for praise and admiration. Although there’s no consensus about it, some experts have found that this attitude of superiority may help them compensate for fragile self-esteem and a sense of vulnerability.

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John Fiscalini, author of the book Coparticipant Psychoanalysis: Toward a New Theory of Clinical Inquiry published by Columbia University Press notes: "The fear of such " narcissistic collapse " often drives narcissists to redouble their grandiose strivings, reinforcing their imperviousness and increasing their controlling-ness" in order to bend reality to conform to their self-images."

Narcissistic personality disorder and the psychological defense mechanisms of denialism and projection

See also: Denialism and Projection

Individuals with narcissistic personality disorder often practice the defense mechanism of denialism.

A majority of narcissists lack self-awareness. Their self-esteem/self-worth is dependent on how other individuals perceive them, and as a result they often practice denialism and deny personal flaws in themselves and accuse others for their own failings, errors, and personal misfortunes. Individuals with narcissistic tendencies are projection-heavy people.

Individuals with strong narcissistic, sociopathic/psychopathic issues deny, project, accuse, and attempt to confuse and/or hurt others.

Narcissists often overestimate their intelligence

The Open University website indicates: "An individual who engages in reflective thinking will question their own assumptions and understanding, and think about issues from a variety of perspectives. This type of ‘higher-order’ thinking can be developed through practice, but it involves understanding, internalising and applying some key concepts to evaluate your own learning."

According to the University of Waterloo article Why narcissists aren't as smart as they think:

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Narcissists are less likely to use critical thinking processes that are important for solving problems and making sound decisions, new research from the University of Waterloo shows. The researchers found that while many narcissists may perceive themselves as highly intelligent, critical thinkers, they are less likely to use important reflective thinking strategies when solving problems, Therefore, the high levels of confidence they have in their intellectual abilities are often misplaced. Shane Littrell, lead author and cognitive psychology PhD student at Waterloo, said that while there is research connecting personality to behaviour, “our research takes a step toward understanding how personality is associated with reflective thinking.”

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Narcisstic rage in individuals with narcissistic personality disorder

Narcissistic rage is an outburst of intense anger or silence that can happen to someone with narcissistic personality disorder.

See also: Narcissistic rage

Healthline.com's article What Is Narcissistic Rage, and What’s the Best Way to Deal with It? states:

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Narcissistic rage is an outburst of intense anger or silence that can happen to someone with narcissistic personality disorder. Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) happens when someone has an exaggerated or overly inflated sense of their own importance. It’s different from narcissism because NPD is linked to genetics and your environment. Someone experiencing narcissistic rage may feel that someone else or an event in their life is threatening or may injure their self-esteem or self-worth. They may act and feel grandiose and superior to others. For example, they may demand special treatment and honor even if it appears that they’ve done nothing to earn it. People with NPD may have an underlying feeling of insecurity and feel unable to handle anything they perceive as criticism. When their “true self” is revealed, a person with NPD may also feel threatened, and their self-esteem is crushed. As a result, they may react with a variety of emotions and actions. Rage is only one of them, but it’s often one of the most visible.

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Grandiose narcissism, narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry

See also: Grandiose narcissism

In 2023, the PsyPost website noted:

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Grandiose narcissism is a personality trait associated with individuals who have an inflated sense of self-importance, a strong need for admiration, and a tendency to exaggerate their own abilities and achievements. People with grandiose narcissism often exhibit a sense of entitlement, a desire for power and control, and a lack of empathy towards others. This trait can be divided into two components: narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry. Narcissistic admiration involves an excessive self-centered desire to be admired by others. It encompasses a deep yearning for constant praise, recognition, and validation of one’s perceived superiority and uniqueness. It is often driven by an inflated sense of self-importance and the need for external validation. On the other hand, narcissistic rivalry entails a need to devalue others, a desire to witness their failures, and aggression towards them.

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Narcissistic rivalry

See also: Narcissistic rivalry

Narcissistic rivalry "causes individuals to hold confrontational self-protection strategies, pursue hegemony, and maintain grand self-image through aggressive means such as attacking and degrading others, or through reactive aggression in the face of perceived threats, resulting in interpersonal conflict".

High intelligence grandiose narcissists less likely to engage in narcissistic rivalry

See also: Intelligence and Agreeableness

A 2023 Australian study found that highly intelligent grandiose narcissists (whose intelligence quotient is above 115 or 120) are less likely to exhibit narcissistic rivalry.

Obsessive narcissists

Hailey Shafir, LCMHCS, LPCS, LCAS, CCS indicates: "Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) share similar symptoms and risk factors, including high levels of perfectionism, a need for control, and rigid thought and behavior patterns. While it’s not uncommon for the conditions to be co-occurring, having both NPD and OCD leads to severe symptoms that require more intensive treatments, such as psychotherapy and psychiatric medication."

PsychCentral indicates about obsessive narcissists:

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This personality is a combination of Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Some of the traits include: ritualistic order, myopic or hyperfocus, unreasonable persistence, single-minded determination, wont listen to advice, cant see things from others perspective, quietly boisterous, doesnt listen to no, uses extremes or exaggerations in arguments, gives excessive details or explanations, keeps mementos of successes, and tramples those in their way. An accurate assessment of this personality is essential to the process.

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Vindictive narcissism

Not all people with narcissistic personality disorder act vindictively.

Vindicative narcissism is often a response to narcissistic injury when someone offends them due to their sense of entitlement/grandiosity.

Negative health effects of narcissistic personality disorder

Research indicates that men with narcissistic personality disorder have higher cortisol levels in their bloodstream even when such men are not under stress which increases their risk for developing cardiovascular problems.

Narcissism and the Dark Triad personality traits

See also: Dark Triad personality traits

The three Dark Triad personality traits are subclinical narcissism, Machiavellianism and subclinical psychopath. Overall, the Dark Triad personality traits share certain features, such as emotional coldness, duplicity, and aggressiveness. The dark-triad personality traits are found to be more prominent in men than in women.

"The “Dark Triad” personality traits are a toxic amalgamation of various negative traits and behaviors, such as they are domineering, violent, volatile, manipulative, remorseless, cynical, deceitful, etc."

Health.com states concerning people with dark triad traits and one of the best ways to deal with them: "...people with dark triad personality traits may be able to change, but the likelihood of that happening is "minuscule," noted Hokemeyer. "The personality traits that make up a dark triad are deeply ingrained in their psyche and highly resistant to any sort of challenge that would manifest a change. The best strategy is to move away from them as quickly as possible." Unlike the other personalities in the Dark Triad, Machiavellianism is not referred to in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for mental disorder V (DSM V).

The dark triad personality traits and their various sub-traits.

Narcissistic personality disorder and individuals who have had multiple divorces

See also: Narcissism and individuals who have had multiple divorces and Psychological and sociological research about individuals with multiple divorces

The abstract for journal article Personality characteristics of Divorce-Prone individuals: A preliminary clinical study published in the journal Contemporary Family Therapy indicates:

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This study focuses on Divorce-Prone individuals and the question of why some persons fail in one marriage after another. The authors studied 12 individuals who had each been divorced two or more times. They found that the cases fell into one of three broad and overlapping groups. The groups have been called the Self-Involved Narcissists, the Compliant Depressed, and the Casualties of Life's Vicissitudes. The individuals and the groups demonstrate a different etiology, different treatment problems, and a very different prognosis.

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According to the psychologist Holly Parker who teaches the course "The Psychology of Close Relationships" at Harvard University, "Research does suggest that people who marry multiple times are more likely (than people who do not marry multiple times) to have personality traits and issues with emotional health that make it difficult to maintain satisfying, long-term relationships. That can mean, even if you're not looking for anything lasting, you won't have much fun with a narcissist whose self-absorption and emotional detachment helped end several marriages."

Study: General public believes atheists are more narcissistic

A beggar in Bangkok, Thailand where the nontheistic form of Buddhism called the Theravada school of Buddhism is prevalent.

In 2010, the Pew Research Forum indicated that 93.2% of the people of Thailand were Buddhists.

Per capita atheists and agnostics in America give significantly less to charity than theists even when church giving is not counted for theists (See: Atheism and uncharitableness).

See also: Atheism and narcissism

The abstract for the 2017 journal article The perception of atheists as narcissistic which was originally published in the journal Psychology of Religion and Spirituality indicates:

"Research into prejudice toward atheists has generally focused on broad characteristics. Some of these characteristics (i.e., self-centeredness, elitism, individualism, and immorality) indicate a possible prejudice of narcissism.

"To investigate this specific prejudice, the present study used the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (Raskin & Terry, 1988), the Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale (Hendin & Cheek, 1997), and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis, 1983), which were adjusted so that the items of each measure were changed from first-person statements to third-person statements to measure participants’ perceptions.

"Participants (N = 359) were given a description of a fictitious individual named Alex, portrayed to them as either male or female and atheist or religious, or male or female with no additional information (creating 6 experimental groups), and then asked to complete the measures as they thought the individual would. Participants consistently rated atheists higher on narcissism measures and lower on empathy measures, indicating a perception of greater narcissism and a lack of empathy compared with religious individuals and controls.

"Participants’ perceptions of Alex were affected by his or her gender in conjunction with his or her religion, and the 2 variables of gender and religion interacted to create different patterns of perception. In general, interactions indicated differences in the way religion and gender impacted the perception of individuals as narcissistic, affecting perceptions of males more than females.

"The results are consistent with research findings that perceptions of atheists tend to be negative and prejudicial. This study highlights the need to compare perceptions with actual personality differences between atheists and religious individuals."

However, this study suffers from ambiguity in the definition of its concepts. Joining the description "prejudicial" to the noun "perception" is a contradiction in terms. If a person is able to perceive something, common usage indicates that the perceived object exists. But if a notion is prejudicially formed, by definition that notion is too inadequate to be called a perception of its object due to the notion's lack of sufficient evidence.

So saying a prejudicial study or examination of an unknown object's or person's traits or characteristics instead results in the recognition of misperceptions by the author of the journal article, but actually saying so about a person's examination of facts personalizes the act of misperceiving to the point that it opens to the audited author of the thesis to charges of hypocrisy, because the manner of the author's own understanding of the alleged prejudices challenging the authenticity of the study or examination is not conveyed.

Narcissistic personality disorder and care/health providers

• Narcissistic Personality Disorder: A Basic Guide for Providers, Mass General Brigham McLean

External links

• 8 Traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Cleveland Clinic
• Narcissistic Personality Disorder | Duke Health
• What is Narcissistic Personality Disorder?, PsychHub
• Why Do Some People With Narcissistic Personality Act in Vindictive Ways?, PsychCentral
• Donald Trump and Narcissistic Personality Disorder: An Interview with Sam Vaknin, By Arlen Williams, American Thinker, March 6, 2016. americanthinker.com
• Zelensky's regrets. He blames the West for his failures. Narcissistic behavior.