Elements of Narcissism
Narcissism can be hard to detect in ourselves, our family of origin, and in those we find attractive. It is a common component of sociopathy and is a set of behaviors perfectly suited to manipulating social systems. So how can we tell when we’re dealing with a narcissist? Psychology provides a few clues for us to understand better and more easily identify narcissism.
Entitlement
Entitlement is a character trait that is useful in children. They need access to resources – food, support, attention, all the things to grow up into a healthy individual – but in an adult, the persistence of this trait is terrifying. Adult, narcissistic attention-seeking is followed by criticism of the attention received or others’ failure to behave in the preferred way. In extreme cases, this entitlement may even disregard the law, especially when sex or wealth or success is involved. Most of our individual interactions will be outside of the law or will occur before enforcement of the law, so if we want to be healthy individuals, we have to be comfortable expressing our desires in a socially appropriate way and accept when others refuse us. We still advocate for ourselves, but we recognize that people have the right to refuse and there are some things we can’t have or are too difficult to get.
Norma Bates (Vera Farmiga) in Bates Motel
Denial
If you've ever been unfairly attacked and felt the need to deny something, then you understand what it's like to be a narcissist. Narcissists have an inner child to protect. There's a part of themselves that never grew up and never learned self-awareness, or self-awareness was so painful that it never became a tool which could be used as an adult to assess whether or not they were safe admitting to something. Healthy people can do that. We can also recognize when circumstances are objectively false and deny a false accusation. A narcissist believes every accusation is a threat and every accusation must therefore be false. This low Insight means they must protect themselves at all costs, defend, and prove they are right.
Control
If you've ever had someone make a series of actions or decisions behind your back without consulting you, even though these decisions affected you significantly or somebody you had the responsibility to care for (such as a child or elderly adult), then you know what it's like to interact with narcissistic control. While they might have been intentionally exerting control by not including you or perhaps covering over a deep insecurity of their own, more often than not, it is worse than that. They don't think about you, at all. That can be tough because they may also be telling you that they love you and they care about you, but when it comes to action, they behave as if you don't exist or only exist to serve their purposes. That puts you in a difficult position. Now you have to figure out how to interact with the situation they created, but when you do so, you'll encounter narcissistic inversion. They will say it is you and not they who seek to have control.
Blame
One of the most difficult narcissistic traits to accurately understand is blame, and that's because most of us have been in a position before where taking responsibility meant severe consequences, often for things that were out of our control. Everything has a cause and outcomes can be unpredictable, so we may try to explain away what happened or point to a lack of information to avoid punishment. We may become frustrated when others refuse to give us a chance to explain or fix our mistakes. A narcissist, however, will go further. If they can’t outright deny the problem, they will turn against others and attempt to assign fault. They cannot consider a world where they’ve done something wrong, and they have no loyalty to their friends or their followers.There's a good chance they even prepared someone else to take the fall.
Gilderoy Lockhart (Kenneth Branagh) in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Grandiosity
The narcissistic trait of grandiosity seems like it would be straightforward to assess, but it isn't, and it's partly our fault because we are attracted to individuals who are successful and dominant, to individuals who have or claim some sort of unique or special quality. Narcissists know this, and they exploit it. So how can you tell the difference between somebody who has something good to offer and somebody who pretends to have to be great? The difference lies in how they treat people. Do they accept help? Are they comfortable being less than perfect? Do they claim their normal accomplishments, children, or possessions are superior? Instead of supporting people, are they trying to crush and destroy individuals around them, especially the people closest to them, their team? When threatened, do they pull a narcissistic inversion and turn accusations against those making them? If they fail, do they suddenly use their failure and victim status as a way to gain attention, credibility, and notoriety, aggrandizing their failure? If so, you might be dealing with a narcissist.
Lack of Empathy
Narcissistic lack of empathy can be confusing at first, but when we pair it with exploitation, everything becomes clear. It might be easier to think of this as “emotional grifting.” In order for somebody to exploit us they have to gain our trust first, and the fastest way to do that is through our emotional systems. Now, in a normal relationship, there's a healthy amount of give and take. When it comes to our intimate relationships or someone on our team, we don't expect them to exploit us emotionally for material benefit or to show us empathy and compassion simply so they can take more empathy and compassion from us and control our behavior. While competition has a healthy amount of aggression and it’s common for people to shun the other team, religion, political affiliation, or workplace competitor, most people still respect the competitive process. Without respect, we fall into narcissism as tribalism, which comes with destructive intentions.
Identity Fantasies
One of the more common narcissistic traits we’re familiar with, thanks to social media, is the unlimited fantasy of success, power, wealth, love, and adoration. While we have a human need for significance, community, and love, a narcissist will pursue these with domineering, dehumanizing, reckless abandon. Their love won’t be flexible; it will be controlling and objectifying. They won’t seek advice; they will look for targets because their view of the community is power-oriented rather than beneficent. They especially will not build or grow; they believe they deserve significance based on intrinsic identity or victim status rather than their effort, so neither will they be consistent or reliable – they won’t build a long-term, concrete pathway forward. They will also be volatile or punitive when they don’t get their way. Their identity is based on the fantasy of success, power, wealth, love, and/or adoration.
Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) from The Devil Wears Prada
Rage, Pride, and Scorn
Narcissistic rage, pride, and scorn are something like the last three bastion tools of self-protection for a narcissist who feels as though their internal child is close to exposure. We know that pride comes before the fall, but pride is also a useful tool for two things. The first is projecting identity and dominating others ontologically – “I declare that I am good so therefore I must be. I think I am, therefore I am, and therefore you are what I say.” Then the narcissist doesn’t have to deal with internal feelings of vulnerability. If they fall, they can always deny. Scorn is a companion to this – it simply uses stonewalling and denigration of the other to protect itself, whereas rage and anger are tools to make other people back down. Knowing this, we can avoid toxicity and refuse to be intimidated, or allow people who are aware of their maladaptive traits to apologize, and forgive them.
Trauma Bonding & Hypnosis
The final narcissistic trait worth discussing is not theirs but ours. We can call it traumatic bonding, narcissistic hypnosis, or Stockholm syndrome in the right scenario, where someone is under distress or kidnapped and falls in love with their kidnappers. In many ways, this is the game that the narcissist plays. They may groom an individual to become their subordinate. They may use somebody as an ego feed and in return, offer access to power, protection, and access to the sense of significance the narcissist projects. Arrogance is distasteful, but confidence is attractive, and the interplay of the two is seductively arresting. Many people want access to that soft underbelly of the narcissist, the inner child. They might even form a coalition with another narcissist and mutually reinforce egos until one is no longer as significant as they claim.
Summary
Narcissism is an excellent strategy for short-term wins. I’ve seen clinical narcissists succeed for years, but they have to keep moving or firing people to find confirmation of their greatness and avoid responsibility for the disasters they cause. Over time, their behavior often goes too far and they end up alone (unless they can buy companionship) or land in prison, alienated from their children, spouses, organizations, and communities, continually rehearsing their fantastical narratives of grandiosity, denial, blame, and entitlement. We need healthy egos, drives, and self-value, but we are far more successful in the long term when people view us with admiration and know they can rely on us.
